The city of Oakland filed suit Wednesday
against top federal prosecutors in an attempt to stop them from seizing
property leased by the nation
posted on October 10, 2012 by
Oakland sues U.S. to stop medical marijuana property seizures
posted on October 8, 2012 by
Marijuana Only for the Sick?
One year after federal law enforcement officials began cracking down on California’s medical marijuana industry with a series of high-profile arrests around the state, they finally moved into Los Angeles last month, giving 71 dispensaries until Tuesday to shut down.
At the same time, because of a well-organized push by a new coalition of medical marijuana supporters, the City Council last week repealed a ban on the dispensaries that it had passed only a couple of months earlier.
Despite years of trying fruitlessly to regulate medical marijuana, California again finds itself in a marijuana-laced chaos over a booming and divisive industry.
Nobody even knows how many medical marijuana dispensaries are in Los Angeles. Estimates range from 500 to more than 1,000. The only certainty, supporters and opponents agree, is that they far outnumber Starbucks.
“That’s the ongoing, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ circus of L.A.,” said Michael Larsen, president of the Neighborhood Council in Eagle Rock, a middle-class community that has 15 dispensaries within a one-and-a-half-mile radius of the main commercial area, many of them near houses. “People here are desperate, and there’s nothing they can do.”
Though the neighborhood’s dispensaries were among those ordered to close by Tuesday, many are still operating. As he looked at a young man who bounded out of the Together for Change dispensary on Thursday morning, Mr. Larsen said, “I’m going to go out on a limb, but that’s not a cancer patient.”
In the biggest push against medical marijuana since California legalized it in 1996, the federal authorities have shut at least 600 dispensaries statewide since last October. California’s four United States attorneys said the dispensaries violated not only federal law, which considers all possession and distribution of marijuana to be illegal, but state law, which requires operators to be nonprofit primary caregivers to their patients and to distribute marijuana strictly for medical purposes.
While announcing the actions against the 71 dispensaries, André Birotte Jr., the United States attorney for the Central District of California, indicated that it was only the beginning of his campaign in Los Angeles. Prosecutors filed asset forfeiture lawsuits against three dispensaries and sent letters warning of criminal charges to the operators and landlords of 68 others, a strategy that has closed nearly 97 percent of the targeted dispensaries elsewhere in the district, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney.
Vague state laws governing medical marijuana have allowed recreational users of the drug to take advantage of the dispensaries, say supporters of the Los Angeles ban and the federal crackdown. Here on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, pitchmen dressed all in marijuana green approach passers-by with offers of a $35, 10-minute evaluation for a medical marijuana recommendation for everything from cancer to appetite loss.
Nearly 180 cities across the state have banned dispensaries, and lawsuits challenging the bans have reached the State Supreme Court. In more liberal areas, some 50 municipalities have passed medical marijuana ordinances, but most have suspended the regulation of dispensaries because of the federal offensive, according to Americans for Safe Access, a group that promotes access to medical marijuana. San Francisco and Oakland, the fiercest defenders of medical marijuana, have continued to issue permits to new dispensaries.
In 2004, shortly after the state effectively allowed the opening of storefront dispensaries, there were only three or four in Los Angeles, experts said. The number soon swelled into the hundreds before the city imposed a moratorium. But dispensaries continued to proliferate by exploiting a loophole in the moratorium even as lawsuits restricted the city’s ability to pass an ordinance. Over the summer, the City Council voted to ban dispensaries.
Anticipating the ban, the medical marijuana industry “that historically had not worked together very well” began organizing a counterattack, said Dan Rush, an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which formed a coalition with Americans for Safe Access and the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, a group of dispensary owners. The coalition raised $250,000, mostly from dispensaries, to gather the signatures necessary to place a referendum to overturn the ban on the ballot next March, said Don Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access.
Instead of allowing the referendum to proceed in March, when elections for mayor and City Council seats will also be held, the council on Tuesday voted to simply rescind the ban. José Huizar, one of only two council members to vote against the repeal, and the strongest backer of the ban, said the city was not in a position to fight an increasingly well-organized industry.
Mr. Huizar said California’s medical marijuana laws, considered the nation’s weakest, must be changed to better control the production and distribution of marijuana, as well as limit access to only real patients.
“Unless that happens, local cities are going to continue to play the cat-and-mouse game with the dispensaries,” he said, adding that the industry had fought attempts here to regulate it. “These are folks who are just out to protect their profits, and they do that by having as little regulation or oversight as possible by the City of Los Angeles.”
But coalition officials say they favor stricter regulations here.Rigo Valdez, director of organizing for the local union, which represents 500 dispensary workers in Los Angeles, said he would support an ordinance restricting the number of dispensaries to about 125 and keeping them away from schools and one another.
“We would be able to respect communities by staying away from sensitive-use areas while providing safe access for medical marijuana patients,” he said.
Such an ordinance would shut down many dispensaries catering to recreational users, said Yamileth Bolanos, president of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance and owner of a dispensary, the PureLife Alternative Wellness Center. “I felt we needed a medical situation with respect, not with all kinds of music going, tattoos and piercings in the face,” she said. “We’re normal people. Normal patients can come and acquire medicine.”
But the hundreds of dispensaries that would be put out of business will fight the federal crackdown, as some are already doing.
In downtown Los Angeles, where most of the dispensaries were included in the order to close, workers were renovating the storefront of the Downtown Collective. Inside, house music was being played in a lobby decorated to conjure “Scarface,” a poster of which hung on a wall.
“We don’t worry about this,” the manager said of the federal offensive, declining to give his name. “It’s between the lawyers.”
David Welch, a lawyer who is representing 15 of the 71 dispensaries and who is involved in a lawsuit challenging a ban at the State Supreme Court, said the federal clampdown would fail.
“Medical marijuana dispensaries are very much like what they distribute: they’re weeds,” he said. “You cut them down, you leave, and then they sprout back up.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 8, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Marijuana Only for the Sick? A Farce, Some in Los Angeles Say.
Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Norimitsu Onishi
Published: October 8, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
posted on October 8, 2012 by
Appeals Court to Consider Benefits of Medical Marijuana
For the first time in 20 years, a federal court will review
scientific evidence on the therapeutic value of marijuana, as a legal
challenge by a group of doctors, medical professionals and patients
makes its way to the U.S. court of appeals in Washington, D.C., next
week.
Americans for Safe Access is
hoping the challenge will change the government
posted on October 8, 2012 by
Dispensary Owner Faces “A Very Difficult Situation” Says Lawyer on Day Before Medical Marijuana Trial
The federal government has prosecuted more than 70 medical
marijuana marijuana patients and providers since President Obama
took office, according to Americans for Safe
Access. Dispensary owner Aaron Sandusky, whom Reason TV has
profiled
here and
here, can be added to that tally tomorrow morning when his
trial begins in a downtown Los Angeles U.S. District Court.
While five others were arrested in connection with G3
Holistic
posted on October 7, 2012 by
Medical marijuana advocates hope lawsuit relaxes US drugs policy
Michael Krawitz, from Elliston, Virginia, suffered a car
accident while serving in the US air force which left him permanently
disabled and in chronic pain.
Years later he received a
prescription for medical marijuana while abroad, which, when used with
other pain treatment, stabilised his condition for the first time.
But
when the department of veteran affairs found out about his cannabis
prescription, they asked him to undergo a drug test, he said, which he
refused.
They have now denied him further treatment.
Later
this month, Krawitz, 49, and other advocates for medical marijuana will
go before the US court of appeal as part of a historic lawsuit that they
hope will challenge the federal government’s classification of
marijuana.
Under the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is
classified alongside heroin as a dangerous drug, with no medical
benefits. Advocates argue that marijuana has a medical benefit and so
should be reclassified.
A wide range of US organisations support
either medical access to cannabis, its reclassification or both. They
include two of nation’s largest physician groups, the American Medical
Association and the American College of Physicians, in addition to the
American Nurses Association, the Federation of American Scientists and
the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled to be heard at the US court of appeal for the DC circuit on October 16.
It
is the result of a long legal battle by the Americans for Safe Access
(ASA), a group of physicians, medical professionals and patients
advocating legal access to marijuana for medical use and research.
It
marks the first time in 20 years the scientific evidence regarding the
therapeutic value of marijuana will be reviewed by the courts. Previous
efforts have not been successful.
"Medical marijuana patients are
finally getting their day in court," said Joe Elford, chief counsel with
ASA. "This is a rare opportunity for patients to confront politically
motivated decision-making with scientific evidence of marijuana’s
medical efficacy."
Federal government says drug has no proven medical benefit
The case began more than a decade ago, when Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) filed its petition.
In
that time, ASA says, much has changed, and the government’s position is
out of step with increasing evidence of the benefits of the drug.
Steph
Sherer, executive director of ASA said: "At the heart of this issue of
the scheduling of marijuana and the federal government’s refusal to look
at the research that’s out there every day is a bigger gap growing
between patients and doctors and the federal government."
Advocates
say that even the therapeutic research required to prove the case for
the beneficial effects of the drug is subject to a unique and overly
rigorous approval process.
While there is no conclusive scientific
evidence in favour of medical marijuana, the research that does exist
indicates it can be effective.
In a conference call sponsored by
ASA, Dr Donald Abrams, director of clinical programs at San Francisco
general hospital, told reporters research had shown cannabis benefited
patients suffering from HIV.
He also said he recommended it to his cancer patients as treatment for a variety of symptoms.
"In
my practice every day as a cancer specialist I see patients who have
loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting from their chemotherapy, pain on
and off of opiates, anxiety, depression and insomnia," Abrams said. He
added that cannabis could effectively treat all of those symptoms in
lieu of five separate drugs.
Krawitz
said: "The definition of cannabis as schedule I has caused my fellow
patients to be imprisoned, denied work, housing, right to own a firearm,
a place on a transplant list, and of greatest concern to me, is the
latest casualty of the drug war, my VA doctor."
In its decision
last year rejecting ASA’s petition to reschedule marijuana, which has
since been appealed, the drug enforcement agency concluded there was no
substantial evidence that marijuana should be removed from schedule 1.
The
DEA included the required scientific assessment from the US department
of health and human services (HHS) which had been prepared five years
earlier.
The HSS found there were no "NDA-quality [new drug
application] studies that have assessed (marijuana)
posted on October 6, 2012 by
LA City Council repeals medical marijuana ban
The Los Angeles City Council reversed the
medicinal marijuana dispensary ban that was approved in July but never
enacted on Oct. 3.
Before the ban was ever able to be
implemented, multiple organizations including Americans for Safe Access
and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 protested and initiated
signature programs for the ban to be overturned.
implemented, multiple organizations including Americans for Safe Access
and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 protested and initiated
signature programs for the ban to be overturned.
This action by the council leaves
the city without any rules and regulations regarding the maintaining of
dispensaries in the city.
By collecting tens of thousands of signatures, 50,000
by ASA
posted on October 4, 2012 by
Government May Soon Have To Re-Evaluate Medical Marijuana
Medical
marijuana advocates are hoping an impending court case will force the
government to re-evaluate the potential upsides of cannabis use.
Under
the Controlled Substances Act, the federal government currently
classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it carries a high risk
of abuse and no proven medical value. The classification puts cannabis
on par with substances like heroin and MDMA, or ecstasy.
Advocates argue that equating marijuana with dangerous drugs like
heroin is ludicrous. The categorization means doctors are prohibited
from prescribing marijuana, and makes conducting research on the
potential medical benefits of cannabis prohibitively difficult.
The
issue is set to come before the United States Court of Appeals for the
first time in almost two decades, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
D.C. Circuit scheduled to hear oral arguments in Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration on Oct. 16.
Americans
for Safe Access, an organization that advocates for medical marijuana,
first filed a petition more than a decade ago. In that time, Executive
Director Steph Sherer said, the government
posted on October 4, 2012 by
L.A. To Repeal Ban on Medical Marijuana Shops
The Los Angeles City Council voted to rescind a newly enacted ban on storefront medical marijuana shops on Tuesday, allowing the city to avoid a referendum next year that some officials said would likely succeed in reversing the prohibition.
The council, in a blow to an industry that operates in violation of federal law, voted in July to ban pot dispensaries and replace them with a system that would allow up to three patients to collectively grow marijuana.
But medical marijuana advocates collected in August the necessary 27,425 valid signatures to put the decision to a March 2013 referendum. Under city rules, that number of signatures – 10 percent of the total number of votes cast in the city’s last mayoral election – put the ban on hold until the vote.
The backtracking comes a week after federal authorities moved to close about 70 such dispensaries in the city in a renewed effort to crack down on the operations through the use of asset-forfeiture lawsuits and warning letters.
“Legally it appears that almost nothing we do is a surefire approach,” City Councilman Paul Koretz said during the meeting on Tuesday.
“But I think the surefire least positive approach is to have a ban, but have it on hold … have it fail in March and basically be back where we started,” said Koretz, who voted in favor of repeal.
Pot remains illegal under federal law, but 17 states and the District of Columbia allow it as medicine. Los Angeles has between about 500 and 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries, more than any other city in the nation.
Medical marijuana in California, which in 1996 became the first state to allow it, is used to treat everything from cancer to anxiety, and many police officials complain recreational users are taking advantage of the system.
The Los Angeles City Council’s decision to repeal the dispensary ban must return for a second vote next week because the 11-2 vote was not a unanimous one.
Separately, the council approved a resolution asking the state Legislature to give municipalities clear guidelines on how to regulate the distribution of medical marijuana.
Councilman Mitchell Englander complained that many badly run dispensaries in the city have “ruined it” for a minority of storefronts that are truly helping patients.
City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who has cancer and diabetes and has taken medical marijuana, made an impassioned plea during the meeting for allowing a limited number of dispensaries.
“Where does anybody go, even a councilman go, to get his medical marijuana?,” Rosendahl said in a hoarse voice, moments after revealing that doctors told him he might not have “much time to live.”
Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Todd Eastham and Cynthia Johnston
Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters
Published: October 2, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Thomson Reuters
posted on October 3, 2012 by
L.A. marijuana ban retreat shows clout of pot activists
The Los Angeles City Council’s decision to
repeal its ban on medical marijuana dispensaries underscores the
political savvy of the increasingly organized and
well-funded network of marijuana activists.
The activists sought to place a
referendum overturning the ban on the March ballot, when the mayor and
eight council seats will be up for grabs.
Tuesday’s
repeal of the ban marked a major victory for the coalition. The
effort was led by an advocacy group called Americans for Safe Access, a
group of dispensaries called the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance
and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 which has
organized workers at more than 50 dispensaries.
By collecting tens
of thousands of signatures to qualify the referendum, the activists
forced council members to decide whether to rescind the ordinance or put
the matter on the March ballot.
It also leaves Los
Angeles, once again, without any law regulating an estimated 1,000 pot
shops, which some describe as magnets for crime and others call a source
of relief for those who are desperately ill.
The council’s 11-2 vote came after an impassioned plea from Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a medical marijuana patient who is fighting a rare form of cancer.
Looking gaunt and speaking in a faint voice, Rosendahl asked his
colleagues how sick patients like him would be able to acquire the drug
if the ban remained in place.
"Where does anybody go, even a councilman go, to get his medical marijuana?" he said.
Like
other cities in California, Los Angeles has strained to find a way to
balance the state law that permits medical marijuana against federal
statutes that continue to make its sale and use a crime. Federal
officials recently launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in the city,
leading one council member to suggest that any regulation is beyond
L.A.’s control.
"That is our relief," Councilman Jose Huizar
said of the federal crackdown, which included raids on several
dispensaries last week in Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights and other
neighborhoods. Dozens of other pot shops received letters ordering them
to close within two weeks.
But council opponents of dispensaries
said they would try to find other ways to shut down marijuana shops by
using laws that are already on the books. Immediately after the vote,
Councilman Mitchell Englander called on the city to prosecute medical
marijuana businesses for violating zoning laws because they are not on
the city’s list of approved land uses.
In another motion Tuesday,
exasperated council members called on the Legislature "to address the
inadequacies of state law." Council members asked for clarity on what
municipalities can do to regulate dispensaries and called for stricter
regulations of physicians who provide medical marijuana recommendations.
They also said patients should be required to demonstrate six months of
medical history to obtain recommendations.
The city’s ban was
enacted in July by council members who complained that neighborhoods
were being overrun by dispensaries. It called for storefront marijuana
sales to be outlawed, but allowed small groups of patients to cultivate
and share the drug on their own.
The ban was the last in a string
of ordinances the council has adopted since 2007, when the city imposed a
moratorium on dispensaries. A loophole in the first law allowed
hundreds of new pot shops to proliferate.
Subsequent ordinances
have generated more than 100 lawsuits from dispensary operators and
others, according to the office of City Atty. Carmen Trutanich.
Many
medical marijuana activists say they agree that there are too many
dispensaries, and have asked for regulation. They have called on the
city to enact an ordinance supported by Rosendahl and Councilman Paul Koretz that would allow pot shops that opened before the 2007 moratorium to remain.
Huizar said he believes medical
marijuana proponents would have put up a lot of money to fund the
referendum to "protect their profits."
"They have attorneys, they have lobbyists, they have unions," he said.
Huizar
accused opponents of the ban of using patients "as a pretense," and
said most people who obtain medical marijuana from stores are
recreational users.
The council heard from several people during
Tuesday’s meeting who insisted that medical marijuana had been
invaluable in helping them cope with their medical problems. None was
more effective than Rosendahl.
The 67-year-old councilman began
taking medical marijuana a decade ago to manage neuropathy, a stinging
pain in his feet. He told council members that he used the drug
"occasionally at night" until he was diagnosed with ureteral cancer
three months ago. The drug has helped him during chemotherapy, he said.
He criticized
President Obama’s handling of the medical marijuana issue and spoke against some of the
recent federal raids of dispensaries. "If I can’t get marijuana, and
it’s medically prescribed, what do I do?" he said.
Because the vote was not unanimous, the repeal will come back for a second vote next week.
posted on October 2, 2012 by
Los Angeles City Council Reverses Course, Votes to Rescind Dispensary Ban
The astute readers of the MPP blog no doubt recall the Los Angeles City Council’s terrible decision to ban medical marijuana dispensaries back in July. Unfortunately, the council didn’t stop there. They then made the decision to circumvent California law by asking the LAPD to work with the Drug Enforcement Agency to shut down dispensaries that were based in L.A. After the ban was passed – and while the council was busy making fast friends with the DEA – activists were busy gathering the necessary signatures to place a referendum on a ballot to repeal this ban. The activists succeeded, meaning the council had two options: repeal the ban themselves or put the referendum on a special election or the March mayoral ballot allowing the residents of Los Angeles to have the final say.
Today the council – joined once again by Councilmember Bill Rosendahl who returned to council duties after going through chemotherapy – held their vote on whether or not the previously enacted ban would stand. In a move that surprised me, the council preliminarily voted to repeal the ban by an 11 – 2 vote. The council will have to take a second vote on repealing the ban next week. If eight of the 11 “yes” votes hold steady, the ban will be repealed.
The council also took up a proposal to urge state lawmakers in Sacramento to pass sensible regulations that would allow medical marijuana patients to safely and immediately obtain their medicine while preventing diversion and unsavory business practices. This entirely reasonable request of Sacramento passed easily: 13 – 0.
MPP is incredibly grateful for all the good and hard work put in by local activists who gathered the necessary signatures to force the repeal vote. This would never have happened without their commitment to safe access.
