Amid a bare-knuckle fight with the federal government
to keep his medical marijuana dispensary open, Steve DeAngelo had an
idea: if federal prosecutors wouldn’t allow his patients to come to him,
he would go to them.

"We decided to launch our delivery service because the federal
government is trying to seize our properties," DeAngelo explained.
DeAngelo’s dispensary, Harborside Health Center, is the largest of its
kind in the world. "We wanted to be able to continue serving our
patients, even if we have to close our doors."

Harborside’s delivery service is open to all card-carrying California
medical marijuana patients who become members of the collective and, in
many cases, offers free, same-day delivery to the entire San Francisco
Bay Area.

The shift from a brick-and-mortar model to one based on home delivery
is becoming increasingly common in California, where years of federal
crackdowns on dispensaries have made selling medical marijuana from a
physical storefront an increasingly risky proposition.

"I’ve definitely seen an increase in the number of delivery
services," said Dale Sky Jones, executive chancellor of the
Oakland-based medical marijuana trade school Oaksterdam University.
Years ago, Oaksterdam offered a class in how to run a delivery service,
but quickly cancelled it due to lack of interest. The university has now
brought the class back as more people are looking to start their own
door-to-door operations.

Though California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996, there’s
long been tension between advocates and the approximately 200
municipalities that have banned pot clubs.

"If communities are not comfortable with a storefront service,
delivery may be the best way to ensure access to people who need it,"
said Jones, who noted that delivery services have the potential to serve
as a compromise between medical marijuana boosters and neighbors
concerned about the negative effects of living near physical
dispensaries — even though evidence suggests that pot clubs actually reduce crime in surrounding neighborhoods.

"A
storefront dispensary draws more attention than some guy driving around
with weed in his trunk," said Kris Hermes of the pro-pot group
Americans of Safe Access. "I think these services will be generally
permitted by local governments."

That hasn’t stopped some California cities from cracking down on
delivery services. While the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has threatened
delivery services in Southern California, most of the antagonism has come at the local level.

In the months after a San Luis Obispo civil grand jury released a report
saying that marijuana delivery services had created a "gray" market,
the city council in the nearby town of Arroyo Grande voted to block medical marijuana delivery services from operating within its boundaries.

That "gray area" is largely due to the lack of a statewide regulatory
body governing medical cannabis, the grand jury report said. While many
cities and counties have regulations governing dispensaries, only a few
have a specific permitting system for delivery services.

"If a delivery service wanted to open up in Los Angeles and do it all
by the book, they couldn’t get licensed, even if they wanted to,
because there’s no system in place for doing that," explained DeAngelo.

"I’ve heard expressions of concerns about the situation from law
enforcement and I think that’s pretty reasonable," DeAngelo added. Other
medical marijuana advocates also said more rules need to be put in
place to ensure these businesses don’t simply become cover for the black
market.

A bill currently making its way through the the California
legislature may do just that. Introduced by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano
(D-San Francisco), the bill would create a new regulatory body under the
aegis of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission overseeing the entire
medical marijuana supply chain from cultivation to point of sale.

The legislation, which supporters said may get a vote before the
state Assembly later this month, doesn’t specifically mention delivery
services, but it leaves open the possibility that the newly created
regulatory agency could take delivery operations under its purview if it
chooses.

Much as the explosion in pot delivery services is an outgrowth of
California’s internal fight over medical cannabis, DeAngelo said he sees
Harborside’s expansion into delivery as something largely driven by
external circumstances.

"If all our physical locations are forced to close, there’s no
question we’d go delivery-only, but I’d view that as a strategic
retreat," said DeAngelo. "There’s no way patients can get the level of
convenience or service with just delivery. There’s a need for both
options."

Mayor Bob Filner took on the federal government once again Monday in the argument against medical marijuana.

Filner
held a press conference in support of Ronnie Chang, a medical marijuana
patient who was operating state sanctioned dispensaries.  Supporters of
Change claim he was wrongfully arrested and persecuted in federal raids
back in 2009.

Los Angeles, which has so many
medical-marijuana shops that officials have lost count, is
asking voters to set limits and raise taxes on cannabis.

The measures on the ballot today include a city plan to
limit the number of clinics to about 135, and another offered by
the marijuana industry that would allow unlimited dispensaries.
A third has been abandoned by its industry backers.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has injected himself into a
federal criminal case against the operator of a medical marijuana
dispensary, intensifying his standoff with federal prosecutors on
cannabis enforcement issues.

Timeline: Medicial Marijuana in San Diego

Filner’s urging jurors who’ll be
chosen for the trial to reject federal law in favor of state statutes
under a centuries-old legal concept known as

Dispensaries providing marijuana to doctor-approved patients operate
in a number of states, but they are under assault by the federal
government. SWAT-style raids by the DEA and finger-wagging press
conferences by grim-faced federal prosecutors may garner greater
attention, but the assault on medical marijuana providers extends to
other branches of the government as well, and moves by the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) to eliminate dispensaries

In a test of public support
for medical marijuana, Los Angeles voters will have three different
options Tuesday to regulate pot dispensaries, including proposals that
limit their numbers and impose new taxes on their sales.

Or they can vote against all three, sending a signal that – depending
on whom you ask – either means they don’t want any dispensaries at all,
or, alternately that they want lots of them without limits or caps.

Supporters of medical marijuana see the vote as critical not just to
the future of the dispensaries in Los Angeles, but also in the rest of
California, now that the state Supreme Court has ruled local
jurisdictions can prohibit the facilities.

Kris Hermes, spokesman for the pro-marijuana Americans for Safe
Access, said voting to regulate dispensaries will help their future in
Los Angeles.

"Regulations would not only help benefit and bring greater safety to
the people of Los Angeles, but deliver much-needed revenue to the
city," Hermes said. "Patients have been waiting several years for
dispensary regulations in Los Angeles. It is truly an idea whose time
has come."

While there are three marijuana measures on the ballot – Proposition
D, Ordinance E and Ordinance F – there are only two active campaigns
now, as the main supporters of E decided to throw their backing behind
D.

Prop. D would cap the number of dispensaries at 135, the ones that were open and registered
with the city before a moratorium was created in 2007. It would impose a
6 percent tax on sales of marijuana. The current rate is 5 percent. D
was crafted by the City Council to allow a finite number of dispensaries
after its effort to have an outright ban on the clinics was challenged
with an initiative.

Ordinance F has no cap and is backed by clinics that would be
excluded under D. It also requires testing of the marijuana dispensed at
the facilities, background checks on employees and auditing of their
operations. It also places a tax of 6 percent on marijuana sold.

Ordinance E caps the number at 135, but has no tax increase and fewer other restrictions.

Voters have a fourth option, Councilman Bernard Parks said. They can
reject all three proposals and allow the City Council to decide the
issue.

But some supporters of medical marijuana think that, rather than
allow them to operate unchecked, it would spell bad news for their
future.

"If all the measures are defeated, it will be viewed, I think, as
giving the City Council a free hand to do what they have shown they
already want to do – just ban all dispensaries outright," said political
consultant Garry South, who is handling the F campaign.

South also argued that passage of Proposition D, with its strict
requirements and cap, would lead to a "slow death" for medical marijuana
clinics.

"Individual council members will be able to close down all the dispensaries in their district," South said.

But Kerry Townsend Jacob, spokeswoman for D, argued that the measure
would best stand up to future attempts to modify rules on dispensaries.

"While we don’t think the City Council will try to have an outright
ban again, if Proposition D passes, the council would need to repeal the
measure and that would require another vote of the people," Jacob said.

The medical-marijuana bubble has officially burst in California.

Until recently, anyone with a $20 doctor’s note and a hankering for Hindu Kush
could walk into his or her corner marijuana dispensary

Marijuana-like medicines that lack the plant

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivered the
commencement address to UC Berkeley School of Law students on Saturday
morning at the Greek Theatre.

Holder gave his speech amid protests from human rights and medical
marijuana activists. In his remarks, Holder touched on some of
protesters

Many California that have
taken a stand on the medical marijuana question have given firm "no"
answers to those wishing to operate cannabis dispensaries, but this
suburb has been an exception.

Diamond Bar, in contrast to many of its neighbors, has an ordinance
that allows a single medical marijuana dispensary to operate within city
limits. That privileged position is currently occupied by a dispensary
calling itself Farm Assist Caregivers, which did not make anyone
available to comment for this article.

Diamond Bar’s 2006 ordinance was adopted at a time when California’s
marijuana laws were less clear than they are today. Despite the federal
prohibition of marijuana, California’s Proposition 215 and S.B. 420
respectively allowed state residents to use marijuana for medicinal
purposes and allowed those patients to obtain identification cards to
distinguish themselves from recreational users who enjoyed marijuana
outside of the bounds of state law.

The seeming contradiction between state and federal law led to some
doubt as to whether cities had the power to forbid medical marijuana
dispensaries from operating within their limits. That in turn led to a
strange situation in which some cities, such as San Bernardino, had bans
in place while dispensaries have operated openly so long as officials
could not be sure their efforts to enforce those bans would ultimately
be upheld in court.

The California Supreme
Court ended much of that doubt Monday when justices handed down a
unanimous opinion upholding cities’ power to prohibit dispensaries.
Justices determined that state law allows medical marijuana patients to
escape punishment for using a controlled substances, but state laws do
not go as far as to make marijuana 100 percent legal.

In light of the new ruling, Diamond Bar Mayor Jack Tanaka said it may
be time to reconsider the city’s law. Although he has not been informed
of any problems around Farm Assist Caregivers, Tanaka said Diamond Bar
adopted the ordinance at a time when he and other city officials were
not certain they had the power to forbid dispensaries.

"When it first got started, I wasn’t happy with it," Tanaka said last week.

In the immediate aftermath of the court’s ruling, however, Tanaka
said there is no movement to create a ban on dispensaries and said "I
think it’s relatively soon" to look at changing Diamond Bar’s law.

Diamond Bar Councilwoman Carol Herrera, like Tanaka, also said there
has yet to be any talk of instituting an outright ban of dispensaries in
her city. She said her opinion may be different if city officials faced
the challenge of controlling several dispensaries, but a single
dispensary is something she can live with.

"So, far the ordinance has worked well and all is peaceful in the city," Herrera said.

Unlike Diamond Bar, inland cities that have banned dispensaries
include Upland, Ontario, Redlands and Riverside. Inland Empire Patient
Health & Wellness Center and its legal dispute with Riverside over
its ban was at the center of the case leading to Monday’s state Supreme
Court opinion.

Besides Diamond Bar, California cities where officials have chosen to
regulate dispensaries instead of banning them include Northern
California liberal havens such as San Francisco, Oakland and Eureka,
according to Americans for Safe Access, an organization in favor of
medicinal cannabis.

Americans for Safe Access’ list also includes Palm Springs, where the
city code allows a maximum of three dispensaries, and the San
Bernardino County desert town of Yucca Valley. Yucca Valley Town Clerk
Jamie Anderson said, however, the policy of allowing a single dispensary
to operate is scheduled to expire in August.

Americans for Safe Access spokesman Kris Hermes said there is less
worry within the organization that cities that have chosen to allow
dispensaries will switch to banning them as there is concern localities
that have instituted temporary bans will move to make them permanent.
The group supports legislation to establish statewide medical marijuana
regulations and clarify marijuana collectives’ immunity from
prosecution.

Read more: http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_23226046/diamond-bar-finds-peace-one-local-dispensary#ixzz2TCDFHOBk