Battle brewing in LA over marijuana stores
City has too many, advocates and officials agree
LOS ANGELES - There are more marijuana stores here than public schools. Signs emblazoned with cannabis plants or green crosses sit next to dry cleaners, gas stations, and restaurants.
The dispensaries range from Hollywood-day-spa fabulous to shoddy storefronts with hand-painted billboards.
Cannabis advocates say that more than 800 dispensaries have sprouted here since 2002; some law enforcement officials say it is closer to 1,000. Whatever the actual number, everyone agrees there are too many.
And so this, too, is taken for granted: Crackdowns on cannabis clubs will soon occur in this city, which has more dispensaries than any other.
For the first time, law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have vowed to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that turn a profit, with police officials saying they expect to conduct raids. Their efforts are widely seen as a campaign to sway the City Council into adopting strict regulations after two years of debate.
It appears to be working. Carmen A. Trutanich, the newly elected city attorney, recently persuaded the council to put aside a proposed ordinance negotiated with medical marijuana supporters for one drafted by his office. The new proposal calls for dispensaries to have renewable permits, submit to criminal record checks, register the names of members with the police, and operate on a nonprofit basis. If enacted, it is likely to result in the closing of hundreds of marijuana dispensaries.
Trutanich argued that state law permits the exchange of marijuana between growers and patients on a nonprofit and noncash-basis only. Marijuana advocates say that interpretation would regulate dispensaries out of existence and thwart the will of voters who approved medical cannabis in 1996.
Whatever happens will be closely watched by law enforcement officials and marijuana advocates across the country who are threading their way through federal laws that still treat marijuana as an illegal drug and state laws that are increasingly allowing medicinal use. Thirteen states have laws supporting medical marijuana, and others are considering new legislation.
No state has gone further than California, often described by drug enforcement agents as a “source nation’’ because of the vast quantities of marijuana grown here. And no city in the state has gone further than Los Angeles. This has alarmed local officials, who say dispensary owners in California took unfair advantage of vague state laws intended to create exceptions to marijuana prohibitions for a limited number of ill people.
Don Duncan, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a leader in the medical marijuana movement, said over-the-counter cash purchases should be permitted but dispensaries should be nonprofit organizations. He said marijuana collectives needed more regulation and called for a “thinning of the herd.’’
