A ban on storefront pot dispensaries here won’t go into effect
Thursday after advocates for medical marijuana successfully petitioned
to block it, the latest skirmish in the battle over how local
governments around the nation should regulate pot businesses.

After years of failed attempts to
control the number of pot shops and their operations here, the Los
Angeles City Council unanimously passed an ordinance in late July that
made storefront dispensaries illegal by modifying language in the city’s
municipal code.

Last week, medical-marijuana advocates
submitted about 50,000 signatures to overturn the ban, nearly twice the
number needed, according to the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office. Once
the city clerk verifies the signatures, the council will have to decide
whether to repeal the ordinance or place the issue on the ballot next
year.

This city’s unsuccessful efforts to
regulate marijuana businesses have taken center stage in a statewide and
national debate. Even as the federal government steps up efforts to
crack down on dispensary sales of the drug, illegal under U.S. law, 17
states and the District of Columbia now allow marijuana use for
medicinal purposes, according to Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy
group.

An ASA spokesman said California was
the first state to popularize brick-and-mortar pot shops, typically
denoted with a leaf or cross symbol, and the nation’s largest state
still counts the most pot shops.

A 1996 voter-approved initiative allows
people with a doctor’s recommendation to grow and use marijuana for
medical reasons in California. According to an attorney for the city of
Los Angeles, there is no mention of dispensaries in that law.

"The state voter initiative envisioned a
kibbutz model," said Deputy City Attorney Bill Carter. "It’s morphed
into a Starbucks model."

Complicating the issue for California
cities is a tangle of competing lawsuits. Last year, the California
Court of Appeals ruled that the city of Long Beach, just south of Los
Angeles, couldn’t use a lottery system to limit the number of pot shops,
because controlling the distribution of medical marijuana violates
federal law. The state Supreme Court recently dismissed the case.

The state Supreme Court is expected to
take up other cases addressing the issue of whether municipalities can
ban pot shops, but not for several months.

Although many California municipalities
ban pot sales, about 50 jurisdictions allow sales, while regulating
things like the number of dispensaries, their locations and hours of
operation, according to Don Duncan, California director of ASA.

In 2007, when fewer than 200
dispensaries were operating in Los Angeles, city officials passed a
moratorium to block new ones from opening. But hundreds more opened
anyway, exploiting an exemption for dispensaries that could show they
faced "hardship."

There are currently about 1,000
dispensaries in the city, according to Councilman Paul Koretz, who
represents parts of the city’s west side.

On the same day the City Council passed
the ban, Mr. Koretz proposed that city attorneys prepare a separate
ordinance allowing dispensaries that were open before 2008 to remain in
business. Mr. Koretz said he hoped the new ordinance, once it proceeds
through a clearance process, would be approved by the City Council
before the ban comes up for a citywide vote.

For now, the proliferation continues.
In the east side neighborhood of Eagle Rock, about 15 dispensaries have
sprouted up recently, attracting customers from the nearby communities
of Pasadena and Glendale, where dispensaries are banned.

Michael Larsen, president of the Eagle
Rock Neighborhood Council, said he isn’t opposed to medicinal marijuana
but said the shops are a "nuisance" in the community. Loitering,
littering and reselling are serious problems around the dispensaries,
Mr. Larsen said.

"It’s easier to open a pot shop than a
yogurt shop in Eagle Rock," Mr. Larsen said. "They just do it and start
raking in the cash."

Annie Lam, a manager at Hyperion
Healing in the nearby neighborhood of Silver Lake, said a citywide ban
would be "harsh" for many of her shop’s clients who use marijuana to
curtail side effects from AIDS, cancer drugs and other conditions. State
law allows people with a prescription to grow their own cannabis, she
said, but for many that isn’t a viable option.

"They’re frustrated," she said. "Everyone still needs their medication."

Six measures

The Los Angeles City Council’s decision to ignore the fact that the
majority of their constituents support the use of medical marijuana, and
its availability through legitimately run medical marijuana
dispensaries, is already costing the financially depleted city thousands
of dollars.

The City Council’s financial throwaway has already begun to take effect, even before their ban has shut down any dispensaries.

The Council’s anti-patient political move irrefutably demonstrates
gross fiscal negligence, and a vast waste of money and resources on
their part.

While the City Council’s members are happy to shut off the millions
of dollars in tax revenues that have been coming into the city’s
financially strapped coffers from medical marijuana dispensaries, there
are other fiscal ramifications, directly emanating from their senseless
decision.

Spearheaded by Councilman Jose Huizar, their September 6 ban is
nothing less than yet another financial drain on a depressed economy in a
city that in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported with 10.2%
unemployment. With California’s 10.8% jobless rate, only two states have
a higher unemployment rate than CA.

The City Council is hoping to increase the number of Los Angeles
residents that are on unemployment by the thousands, as a direct result
of shutting down these establishments.

Ironically, the city’s tab will also increase, due to the exponential
cost of the City Council enlisting the LAPD’s involvement in helping to
force medical patients to purchase their meds from gang members.

When the Los Angeles City Council voted for a ban on medical
marijuana collectives and dispensaries on June 24, they certainly knew
there would be a major legal battle ensuing immediately. They were
keenly aware of the pricy legal expenses that the City of Los Angeles
and its taxpayers would be paying as a result of their witless decision
to coerce medical patients into buying marijuana from shady drug dealers
on the streets, instead of purchasing them from reputable dispensaries.

While waging their war against medical patients, the City Council has
also been conscious of the obvious fact that their ill conceived
decision to ban medical marijuana dispensaries will end up in a
referendum on the ballot.

In response to the City Council’s ban, approximately 50 thousand
signatures were turned in by advocates. The petition drive opposing the
City Council’s decision only lasted nine days. It was started on August
11.

Of the 50 thousand signatures generated, only 27,480 of the
signatures need to be valid. Kimberly Briggs, who serves as the media
specialist for the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office, told The 420 Times
that the L.A. City Council’s ban on dispensaries will be suspended once
the petitions are submitted to the City Clerk’s office.

As a result of this, "The ban will not be enforced," she emphasized. It will disempower the September 6 ban.

Briggs commented, "Once we receive the petition with the signatures on it, we have to do an official count first."

As far as how long it will take to verify the signatures, Briggs
says, "It depends on the workload at the office, what time the petition
is submitted, and when we start. So there is no guarantee specifically,
as to when we start counting."

"But we do have fifteen calendar days to start verifying the
signatures," she confirms. She explains that it is fifteen days when the
City Clerk verifies a random sampling. However, if their office decides
to verify all the signatures, it will be on a thirty-day timeline.

According to the City Clerk’s initial estimate, it will take twenty
city employees to help count and verify a random sampling of signatures.

However, if the department decides to do a full review and
verification of all the signatures, it will take thirty days, and it
will require even more people that will have to be recruited for the
process.

Briggs says of the expense of the verification process, "Be aware
that these are preliminary cost estimates. The costs of reviewing the
petition can vary, based on the quality of the petition, as well as
factors."

"If enough signatures are submitted, we will use a random sample methodology that usually takes that 15 days," she states.

Briggs says in that case, using a random sample, "The estimated cost of review is approximately $60,000.00."

According to Briggs, "If on the other hand, we have to review every
signature submitted to verify that there are enough valid signatures,
the cost would be approximately $250,000.00."

All of these expenses come from L.A. resident’s tax dollars.

Conversely, the referendum against the City Council’s ban was paid
for by The Greater Los Angeles Alliance Collective Alliance (GLACA), the
UFCW Local 770, and the Los Angeles Chapter of Americans For Safe
Access (ASA). "The Committee To Protect Patients and Neighborhoods is
the alliance of those three organizations," says longtime activist and
head of GLACA, Yami Bolanos of PureLife Alternative Wellness Center. "It
was just the three of us that raised the money, that collected the
signatures, and that will submit them" to the City Clerk.

Bolanos points to more money that the City Council is squandering money in yet another way with this issue.

"The city (Council) should deal with us now," emphasizes Bolanos,
"Instead of putting this off until March, when they’re going to have to
spend a couple millions dollars on an election."

She is emphatic as she declares, "The city should deal with this now."

Bolanos maintains, "They need to keep the pre-ICO dispensaries open
until they figure out a better way to bring access to (the city’s
patients)."

Don Duncan, California director of Americans For Safe Access, notes,
"The next time that the City Council meets, they have two choices. They
can either just repeal the ordinance when they know that we qualify, or
they could say, ‘We see that,’ and do something else, or they could put
it to a vote." He contends that such action would not likely take place
until a minimum of 110 days after the signatures have been determined to
be valid. That means the next likely time would be March. Duncan
notes, "The City Council could call for an election earlier than March,
but it doesn’t make good economic sense to call for a special election
when there’s a vote coming up in March anyway. So we just expect to put
it on the March ballot. ‘

Because of the signatures, Duncan says, "Everyone should be able to stay open until March."
"That is my understanding," he confirmed.

"Everyone should be able to stay open until the referendum," he said.

He then added that he is speaking of the City Council’s ban, and it
of course, would not include any unrelated, random raids by federal
agents.

Regarding the chaotic mess the City Council has created, Bolanos, who
runs a Pre-ICO dispensary, stresses her desire to see the City Council
make a decision before March. "The city should allow the pre-ICO
collectives, the ones that were open prior to September 14, 2007 to stay
open, to serve the community, and to serve the patients, until the city
(Council) can figure out what the hell they’re doing."
Irrefutably, Los Angeles voters need to elect a new City Council that
will stop interfering with medical patients, and that will stop trying
to force them into dealing with dangerous drug dealers.

The City Council must be replaced with one that will also stop
negligently wasting city funds and the taxpayers’ money, draining city
resources on inadvisable and inappropriate decisions.

An ordinance that would ban marijuana dispensaries from operating in
Los Angeles could be put on hold and possibly left to voters to decide,
if a petition on its way to the city clerk is ruled valid.

The petition, comprised of about 50,000 signatures, was submitted to
the Los Angeles City Clerk’s Office Thursday and calls for a referendum
next March on the new ordinance banning storefront dispensaries
effective Sept. 6. But the petition’s immediate effect would be to
prevent the ordinance from even going into effect.

Activists who sponsored the petition drive formally announced their
plans at a Wednesday morning press conference at the Universal Sheraton
in Universal City.

The City Council voted last month to ban the dispensaries, citing
conflicting court opinions about whether the city can legally regulate
cannabis collectives. While banning storefront dispensaries, the city
will allow licensed patients or caregivers to grow and transport their
own medical marijuana, under the ordinance.

After the vote, the City Attorney’s Office sent letters to 1,046
suspected dispensary locations warning them to shut down by Sept. 6 or
face court action and a $2,500 fine for every day they remain open past
the deadline. Medical marijuana supporters quickly mounted a
signature-gathering effort in hopes of forcing a referendum on the
issue.

A minimum of 27,425 signatures is required to get the issue on the
ballot, according to petition-drive organizers, who say they’ve
collected around twice that many. Once the petition is submitted, the
City Clerk’s office will verify the signatures against voter
registration information.

If the petition is determined to pass muster, the City Council would
have 20 days to either repeal the ordinance or leave the decision up to
voters in next year’s municipal election on March 5, said Kimberly
Briggs, media specialist with the city clerk’s election divsion.

"Legally, we have 15 days to verify the signatures on the petition," Briggs said.

Councilman Jose Huizar, who champions the ban, said the submission of
signatures does not necessarily mean storefront medical marijuana shops
will be spared legal action, even though the ordinance that provides
for the storefront ban would be put on hold.

According to Huizar, filing petition signatures means the city’s
"Sunset Clause” will kick in, "which outlaws storefront dispensaries
and only allows, per state law, for a qualified patient or their
caregiver to grow their own or collectives consisting of three or fewer
qualified patients or their caregivers.”

Officials in the office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich have
advanced similar opinions about the city’s options, but medical
marijuana advocates disagree.

"State law is clear — selling medical marijuana for profit is
illegal,” Huizar said. The referendum effort "does not change that and
doesn’t protect dispensary owners from prosecution if they engage in
illegal activity.”

If placed on the ballot next March, the referendum on the ban will
take place at the same time as Angelenos elect a new mayor. Medical
marijuana activists say, however, that they hope the Council revisits
the idea of a total ban, in which case no referendum will be necessary.

"We want a strict regulatory system in place to ensure safe access
for patients and a nuisance-free process for neighborhoods,” referendum
proponent Norma Schaffer said. "This one-size-fits-all ban not only
hurts patients, but it eliminates dispensaries playing by the rules
while doing little to shut down rogue dispensaries.

"We need good policy, not knee-jerk bans that make the problem
worse,” she said. "We’re confident the voters of Los Angeles will agree
with us.”

A number of pro-medical marijuana organizations and medical marijuana
users with various illnesses gathered at the Universal Sheraton on
Wednedsay to announce the intention of seeking a referendum.

Rick Icaza, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local
770, which represents dispensary workers from about 40 storefronts,
spoke in favor of drafting a more lenient ordinance.

"This referendum will give the city an opportunity to have a real
discussion about compassionate use, one outside the narrow halls of
politics and politicians," he said. "We disagree that the best way to
respond to the neighborhood concerns with certain dispensaries was to
ban them all outright. We are seeking a compromise solution."

One of the patients to speak was Linda Leek, who said she has used
marijuana for four years to help her deal with thyroid myalgia. She said
the few exceptions outlined in the new ordinance would make it harder
to obtain cannabis.

Under the new policy, primary caregivers to grow and transport
medical marijuana. In addition, two or three patients would be able to
collectively grow and share medical marijuana in their homes, but not
storefronts.

"I can’t grow it on my own," Leek said. "I can’t afford to grow it
on my own. I would not know the knowledge to grow it on my own."

Don Duncan, director of Americans for Safe Access, said he views
regulation as the best alternative to banning medical marijuana
dispensaries.

He said one approach would be to carefully plan the location of such
storefronts so that they are not allowed to operate near churches,
schools and parks.

Duncan said if better regulation means shutting down some marijuana
shops to keep others open at more appropriate locations, it would be
worth it.

"We know when we call for regulations that not everyone is going to
meet the standard and be able to operate under those regulations," he
said. "And that may be an acceptable outcome so long as we preserve
some access for patients."

On Aug. 17, a medical marijuana trade group called the Patient Care
Alliance filed a lawsuit in hopes of blocking the marijuana ban, calling
it a "reckless, baseless and heartless act of denial of necessary
medical services.”

One of the champions of the ban, Councilman Jose Huizar, said after
the council’s vote in July that the city’s action still provides safe
access to marijuana for patients who need it, but also puts the city on
solid legal footing and alleviates quality-of-life issues that
constituents complain about.

"Relief is coming in the form of having a more focused and intense
crackdown on these dispensaries that cause problems in our
neighborhoods,” Huizar said.

Councilman Paul Koretz, an ally of the medical marijuana community,
advocates allowing 100 or so of the city’s oldest dispensaries to remain
open.

Proponents of medicinal marijuana say they have
collected enough signatures to force a ballot referendum to repeal LA

Los Angeles, CA — With plenty of time to spare,
medical marijuana advocates filed more than 50,000 signatures today
in an effort to overturn a recently passed ban on dispensaries
throughout the city. Despite a loud outcry from patient advocates,
the Los Angeles City Council adopted an outright ban last month on
medical marijuana distribution within the city limits. The ban came
after the city failed over a more than 4-year period to develop
regulations suitable for providing medical marijuana to the tens of
thousands of area patients.

What: Coalition press conference on filing
referendum signatures to overturn Los Angeles dispensary ban
When: Wednesday, August 29th at 12 Noon
Where: Room Terrace D at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, 333
Universal Hollywood Drive, Universal City, CA 91608

"Very soon, the city will be faced with having to rescind its
ordinance or putting the decision before Los Angeles voters," said
Don Duncan, California Director with Americans for Safe Access, the
country’s largest medical marijuana advocacy group. "Because of the
ban’s questionable future, the city ought to reconsider its tough
stance on enforcing the ban." The council recently voted to
collaborate with federal agents and to fund an unprecedented
enforcement effort aimed at shutting down hundreds of legally
compliant facilities in the city.

After the dispensary ban was passed by the Los Angeles City Council
on July 24th, a group calling itself the Committee to Protect
Patients and Neighborhoods with the help of PCI Consulting began
gathering signatures to overturn it. The city now has up to 30 days
to either rescind the ban or call a special election and put the
decision to Los Angeles voters early next year. Depending on timing,
the city may be forced to hold a separate election in addition to
the March primary and May mayoral election.

Prior to the July vote to ban dispensaries, ASA helped generate more
than ten thousands letters urging the council to adopt sensible
regulations rather than a complete ban. The city had weakly
attempted to develop regulations over the past few years, but the
resulting ordinance was so flawed that it was challenged by dozens
of lawsuits. Notably, more than 50 municipalities in California have
adopted dispensary regulations, which in almost all cases bring a
significant economic benefit and lower rates of crime in surrounding
neighborhoods.

Today’s filing also came a week after the California Supreme Court
dismissed as moot Pack v. City of Long Beach, the decision
on which the Los Angeles ban was predicated. "Given the recent
dismissal of the Pack decision by the California Supreme
Court, the ban has absolutely no basis," continued Duncan. "The city
should be figuring out ways to work with patients instead of
shutting the door on them without any viable reason other than sheer
contempt."

On the same day the city council adopted the ban on dispensaries, it
also voted to task the city attorney with drafting an ordinance to
regulate a certain number of facilities. Patient advocates have
consistently supported sensible regulatory proposals similar to one
recommended by Council member Paul Koretz and Council President Herb
Wesson, which would begin to address the needs of thousands of
qualified patients in the city.

Further information:
Referendum to overturn LA dispensary ban: http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/LA_Referendum_1.pdf

Medical marijuana advocates said Wednesday they have gathered enough
signatures to place a referendum before voters that would halt the
forced closure of dispensaries next week and overturn a ban on new pot
clinics in Los Angeles.

More
than 50,000 signatures were collected during the past several weeks,
after the City Council approved an ordinance that would shutter hundreds
of pot shops by Sept. 6.

The city clerk’s office has 15 calendar
days to verify the signatures as those of registered voters. If the
measure qualifies for the ballot next year, the ban would be immediately
suspended. The City Council also could rescind the ordinance.

"Because of the ban’s questionable future, the city ought to
reconsider its tough stance on enforcing the ban," said Don Duncan,
California’s director for Americans for Safe Access, the country’s
largest medical marijuana advocacy group.

The drive to eliminate the ban is the latest offensive by pot advocates to keep clinics open.

The
city has fumbled with its medical marijuana laws for years, trying to
provide safe and affordable access to the drug for legitimate patients
while addressing worries by neighborhood groups that streets were being
overrun by dispensaries and pot users.

The city ordinance outlaws
the sale of the drug in stores and limits the growing or sharing of the
drug to three people. City officials have been notifying dispensary
owners that they must shut down or be subjected to court action and a
$2,500 fine for every day they remain open past the deadline.

City
officials previously ordered the closure of pot shops, but the process
failed amid lawsuits and conflicting rulings by appellate courts.

The
Committee to Protect Patients and Neighborhoods collected signatures
during the past month, saying they needed at least 27,425 names of
qualified voters to get the issue on the ballot.

Advocates also
are pinning their hopes on a lawsuit filed by a medical marijuana trade
association, arguing the city ordinance violates state law guaranteeing
legal access to marijuana for medical reasons.

Even if
dispensaries remain open, the operations still could face action by the
federal government, which has been ordering stores to close around the
state for the past 10 months. Federal prosecutors recently filed three
lawsuits and sent warning letters to more than 60 clinics in Anaheim and
La Habra.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

The city’s long struggle to
control medical marijuana dispensaries took a new turn on Wednesday with
the collection of 50,000 signatures on petitions to overturn the city’s
proposed ban on dispensaries.

If the signatures are validated once they are formally
submitted on Thursday, it will put the city’s ban – scheduled to take
effect on Sept.6 – on hold until the March 5 municipal election.

Don Duncan, California director of Americans for Safe Access,
urged the City Council to rescind its ordinance and return to
negotiating with medical marijuana advocates.

"Very soon, the city will be faced with having to rescind its
ordinance or put the decision before Los Angeles voters," Duncan said.

"Because of the ban’s questionable future, the city ought to reconsider its tough stance on enforcing the ban."

Councilman Jose Huizar, who authored the citywide ban on the
dispensaries because of their proliferation, said he remained undeterred
by the threat of the referendum.

"We still plan to move forward with the idea that dispensaries
do not have a right to exist," Huizar said. "If there is a stay on the
ordinance, we will have no law in the city allowing the dispensaries and
we will enforce state and federal laws on marijuana."

There also has been an ongoing dispute between the state and
federal authorities on the issue. California voters approved medical
marijuana with Proposition 215 – a measure federal authorities argue is in violation of their laws on marijuana as an outlawed substance.

Huizar said the city has tried to work with the medical marijuana community without success.

"We passed a measure that we thought worked and we were hit
with 70 lawsuits," Huizar said. "It strikes me this is more about profit
than getting marijuana to people who need it."

Huizar called his proposal a gentle ban in that it allowed patients and caregivers to grow marijuana without punishment.

Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, said the
ease with which the signatures were gathered and the number should send
a message to City Hall. They needed 28,000 signatures to qualify for
the ballot; they collected 50,000.

"The patients and advocates have come forward and said the ban
is unacceptable and should be reconsidered," Hermes said, adding the
city chose to avoid considering ordinances from other cities that would
have been acceptable.

Assistant City Clerk Holly Wolcott said the city will use a
random sample of the signatures submitted to determine if the referendum
qualifies for the ballot. It would be placed on the regularly scheduled
March ballot to avoid any additional costs.