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.
