The second surprise? Monday’s joint committee meeting with members of the Public Safety and Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committees comes only two days before the badly flawed ordinance goes before the full City Council for a vote on Wednesday, November 18. That means stakeholders have no real chance to respond to the joint committee’s decision or to express their opinions to other City Councilmembers. Obviously, Councilmembers are under pressure form the City Attorney, media, and neighborhood groups to move quickly.

Patients and advocates will ask City Council President Eric Garcetti to delay Wednesday’s City Council vote. If he listens, they will have more time to critique the latest draft and talk with their elected representatives about more objective input from city staff. Every City Councilmember should consider, for example, a report from the Planning Department indicating that the City Attorney’s location requirements will force more than 75% of the city’s collectives to close (assuming any can navigate the other onerous restrictions).

Angelenos must insist that City Councilmembers reject the bad policy and the sneaky process. We don’t need any more eleventh hour surprises in a process that has been creeping along since 2005. Medical cannabis patients and advocates should speak up loudly in phone calls and emails to elected representatives – and show up in force at City Hall on Monday and Wednesday morning.

Ed Reyes

The Los Angeles City Council will not be voting this week on a medical cannabis ordinance approved by the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee. The LA Times reports that City Councilmember Ed Reyes wants more time to resolve the complicated issues surrounding the ordinance, and staff at City Hall tell me that more committee hearings may proceed a vote by the full City Council. It is possible that a joint committee meeting between the PLUM and Public Safety Committees will address the necessary changes.

At this point, delay may be beneficial for patients. The City Attorney’s latest draft version has some big flaws – including lack of protection for patient privacy, a ban on edible preparations, and unreasonable restrictions on where collectives can be located. Americans for Safe Access (ASA) recommends substantial changes to the draft. It will be easier to make improvements like these at the committee level than it will be before fourteen or fifteen City Councilmembers.

City Councilmembers are right not to be bullied into adopting a bad ordinance. This issue is too complicated and important to rush.

City Council staff expect the new draft ordinance from the City Attorney to be approved by the Public Safety Committee as soon as Monday, October 26, and the measure could be before the full City Council that same week. Entrenched staff left over from former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s term continue to insist that sales of cannabis and storefronts maintained by legally organized and operated collectives are illegal.  As with previous versions, provisions of the draft ordinance are unacceptable to patients and advocates. Specifically, the draft ordinance lacks appropriate protection for patient privacy, prohibits edible and concentrated cannabis, and imposes unreasonable buffer zones for collectives around a laundry list of sensitive land uses.

Patients and advocates should be ready to spend some time at City Hall next week pushing back on this hurry-up measure in the Public Safety Committee and before the full City Council. I recommend joining the Los Angeles Americans for Safe Access (ASA) email announcement list for breaking news.