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.
