Allison Margolin

(This is a guest blog by Allison B. Margolin, Esq.)

As the Obama administration attempts to steer federal agents away from prosecuting marijuana dispensaries, the LA District Attorney and City Attorney’s Office are attempting to undermine that shift by articulating a deceitfully narrow view of the state law.

Despite reports of trillion dollar deficits nationally and a collapsing state economy, District Attorney Steve Cooley says his office is committed to closing down revenue-generating medical marijuana dispensaries and the LA district attorney’s office continues to take prisoners of war in their fight against safe access to medical marijuana.

In doing so, LA City is threatening to plunge the state’s economy into further collapse by taking potential tax revenues that could be going to the state treasury. Moreover, the City’s position threatens to generate crime by forcing the huge demand for marijuana back to the street. If the free market has allowed for the proliferation of dispensaries, that demand is not going away. The avenue for its fulfillment will simply change and could go from safe to entrenched in the poly-drug trafficking black market economy.
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Last Friday, a day after Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and District Attorney Steve Cooley attended a law enforcement training hosted by the California Narcotic Officers Association (CNOA) on the “eradication” of medical marijuana dispensaries, both officials declared a war on safe, affordable access to this therapeutic substance. In multiple newspapers, Trutanich and Cooley flagrantly stated their opinion that almost all dispensaries in Los Angeles are operating illegally, in violation of state law. Not only did these local prosecutors fail to provide any evidence of such violations, making unfounded accusations instead, but they have also ignored (or, more appropriately, rebuffed) the California Attorney General guidelines on this matter. (more…)