Thumbs-up to medical marijuana

“When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than anything else. I mean, my attitude is that if it’s an issue of doctors prescribing medical marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma or as a cancer treatment, I think that should be appropriate because there really is no difference between that and a doctor prescribing morphine or anything else.

I think there are legitimate concerns in not wanting to allow people to grow their own or start setting up mom and pop shops, because at that point it becomes fairly difficult to regulate.

… I think the basic concept that using medical marijuana in the same way with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate.”

- Excerpts from a March 22, 2008 interview with then-Senator Barack Obama

Today Tiffany Wright, Director of The Green Appliance of Patients & Providers (The GAPP), forwarded us an anonymous email from a dispensary owner from LA. Permission has been given to print it, as follows:

“Contrary to claims made by District Attorney Steve Cooley, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, and the City Council, the law permitting the use of medical marijuana in California is not the slightest bit unclear. Proposition 215 was written to allow for the broadest possible access to medical marijuana for any condition for which it would provide relief. That was not an oversight; it was on purpose. By attempting to impose an ordinance that would limit access so severely, the City Council is breaking both the letter and the spirit of the law. When the State Supreme Court ruled that the legislature could not set limits on the amount of marijuana a patient could grow or possess, it said that ruling was based on the fact that the law is written in such a way that it cannot be amended, so why is the city trying, in effect, to amend it?

As for the argument that so many dispensaries constitute a public danger, or even a nuisance, there is no evidence of that. While some dispensaries are obviously not as well run as others, they are not hotbeds of crime. Yes, there have been a few robberies but far fewer than at liquor and convenience stores. During the time dispensaries have proliferated, the crime rate in Los Angeles has gone down. That may have nothing to do with dispensaries, but it cannot be argued that the dispensaries have contributed to a rise in crime.

Many dispensaries that opened in the past several months have already closed because of too much competition. Contrary to popular belief, it is not an easy business to run. Small shops are not making big profits, or for the most part, any profit at all. The market will shake itself out of its own accord and in a few months, if left alone, there will be exactly as many dispensaries as the market requires and will support, and no more. 

Where in the world is the social good in limiting the number of dispensaries so that millions and millions of dollars are concentrated in the hands of a few instead of allowing more to employ many people at decent if modest salaries? What would be the social and environmental impact of requiring people who are sick to travel away from their neighborhoods to distant dispensaries? To wait in line in wheelchairs? What about the extra gas usage? The additional traffic? What about all the other people who are now gainfully employed and paying taxes? The growers, bakers, transporters? The landlords? What about the dozen or more magazines dependent upon dispensaries’ advertising revenue, and the presses that print them?

At this time of dire financial crisis, when the city budget has a shortfall of millions ballooning every day, when there are failing businesses and multiple empty storefronts on every corner, how can the Council think about spending non-existent funds and personnel to force taxpaying businesses to close instead of collecting taxes from them? What crimes will the city attorney, with his dwindling staff, not prosecute while he concentrates on shutting down dispensaries? And to what conceivable end?

Will people stop smoking marijuana? Will they endure serious inconvenience to obtain it legally? Of course not. What will happen is that the whole business will retreat back underground, where it has flourished for decades. Then there will be no regulating it, much less taxing it. The shrinking police force could not possibly arrest all the people involved in buying, selling, and growing, and even if they did arrest them, where would they put them? In jail, when they are letting burglars out before their sentences are served? How would the overburdened court system cope with that influx?

And why would the city even consider squandering its limited resources on this misguided action, and on fighting at great expense the lawsuits that have already begun, when full legalization will be on the November ballot and may very well pass? What will have been the point of forcing thousands of people out of jobs and closing hundreds of taxpaying businesses? Of trying to impose an ordinance so Draconian that most of its provisions would be utterly impossible to enforce?

Finally, there is the overwhelming irony of the dispensary owner being hauled off to jail in handcuffs on the very same day the story came out about the fourteen UC studies of medical marijuana, published in top medical journals, all proving clearly measurable benefits for a wide variety of ailments. With health care costs completely out of control, with prescription drugs unaffordable and ineffective for many, not to mention their often dangerous side effects, why would any government entity want to limit patients’ access to safe, effective, affordable medicine? Who is the criminal here, the dispensary owner or the city?”

Yesterday Fox News reported that Californians consume roughly one million pounds of marijuana each year. (Somehow this doesn’t surprise us here at LA JEMM.)

This little factoid surfaced because State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has introduced a bill to legalize marijuana and charge a $50 sin tax per ounce sold via retail.

Potential benefit: if this bill passed, cashing in on marijuana sales would earn California about 1.4 billion dollars. Bye bye, deficit!

But passage of this bill depends on YOU. Make sure it happens: visit congress.org, type in your zip code to find your state representatives, and email them to let them know you support this bill. DO IT NOW!