Three competing measures
will appear on the May 21, 2013, ballot in the City of Los Angeles in an
attempt to regulate the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries. The Los Angeles City Council has
attempted to regulate collectives for nearly 7 years, unsuccessfully, including
a failed moratorium, a failed ban and hundreds of lawsuits against the
City. Some frustrated dispensary
operators have taken matters into their own hands with two legally shaky voter
initiatives that may do more harm than good. The LA City Council has responded to these initiatives by
voting to put its own measure on the ballot, which is about as legally sound as
its previous ordinances.
The Medical
Marijuana Collectives Initiative Ordinance sponsored by the Committee to
Protect Patients and Neighborhoods is made up of the United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 770, the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, and Americans
for Safe Access. If it’s true that
what we say enough times becomes so, then this ordinance is aimed to shut down
every dispensary in Los Angeles.
Seventeen sections of the initiative begin, “Every
medical marijuana collective is prohibited…” (pages 5-6). Everyone’s
illegal including the patients, “It is unlawful to own, establish, operate,
use, or permit the establishment or operation of a medical marijuana collective,
or to participate as an employee, contractor, agent or volunteer, or in any other
manner or capacity in any medical marijuana collective” (page 4).
The Committee to
Protect Patients and Neighborhoods has adopted most of its language from LA
City Councilmember Paul Koretz’ proposed ordinance, the Limited Immunity Ban. Who’s immune? A small group of collectives hoping to create a dispensary
monopoly by declaring that all other ‘competition’ and their patients are
illegal. Exempt are those “operating in the City as of September 14,
2007, as evidenced by a collective tax registration or tax exemption
certificate issued by the City on or before that date” and the collective has
to prove registration under at least two other schemes (page 5) already deemed
unlawful. Interestingly, labor
unions usually don’t try to put their members or potential members out of
work. However, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union mission in
Los Angeles is to put as many collectives out of business as possible – a
legally questionable tactic in itself for a labor union.
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The Regulation of
Medical Marijuana for Safe Neighborhoods and Safe Access is sponsored by Angelenos
for Safe Access and founded by David Welch, a Los Angeles-based attorney. According to this proposal, “this
initiative is not intended to conflict with federal… law…, [is to] be interpreted to be
compatible with federal.. enactments” (page 3); and "nothing in this
section implies or authorizes that any activity connected with the distribution
or possession of cannabis is legal unless otherwise authorized and allowed by… federal
law." However, the proposal
does conflict with federal law. The U.S. Department of Justice and the DEA
are clear that its position is that marijuana is still federally illegal and
therefore, no one can comply with this ordinance.
Angelenos for Safe
Access then give their power away to LA City Council by allowing the council to amend
or repeal the ordinance. “The
provisions of the Los Angeles Municipal Code added by, amended by, or contained
in this initiative measure may be amended to further its purposes by ordinance
passed by a majority vote of the Council…” (page 15). The purpose of the voter
initiative is to create policy that lawmakers failed to enact and they can’t
change. After all the frustration
with the City’s inability to properly regulate collectives and after all the
money and effort spent to get an initiative on the ballot, Angelenos for Safe
Access defeat their own efforts.
It’s hard to know if Welsh’s group is working on behalf of the
collectives and their patients or federal authorities and city officials.
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All of these proposed
regulations present legal issues with arbitrary dates and numbers. Public safety would be compromised by a
handful of collectives attempting to serve over 400,000 patients in Los
Angeles. Prices would increase. The
number of compassion and discount programs would decrease. Low-income, disabled and seriously ill
patients, those for whom Proposition 215 was crafted, will have the least
amount of safe, affordable access. The Los Angeles
Police Department has long stated that it wants to see 12 or fewer dispensaries
in LA; 14 or fewer is what the DEA can eliminate in a day. The language within these initiatives demonstrates that those intimately involved with these
initiatives have financial and political motives that are helping law
enforcement and political officials, and not the patients.
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Links To Initiatives:
Medical Marijuana
Collectives Initiative Ordinance
Regulation of
Medical Marijuana for Safe Neighborhoods and Safe Access
LA City Council
Motion Initiative Ordinance
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News Links:
Injunction issued
against L.A.'s medical marijuana law
Federal crackdown
on medical pot sales reflects a shift in policy
Los Angeles City
Council votes to ban marijuana shops
Marijuana: A
failure to regulate, but not by dispensaries
L.A.'s Latest Try
at Regulating Pot: 'Limited Immunity' for Marijuana Shops
In Los Angeles,
advocates push dueling medical marijuana measures
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