Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed a lawsuit today challenging the flawed medical cannabis ordinance recently adopted by the City of Los Angeles. We hope that City Councilmembers will still vote to change some of the most onerous provisions of that ordinance, but we must use every tool at our disposal to protect patients’ access – including litigation.

One plaintiff talked with reporters from the Los Angeles Times about the lawsuit:

The suit alleges the city ordinance violates state law, and it seeks a court injunction and restraining order to stop the measure from being enforced. In the suit, dispensary operators object to the “onerous restrictions” of the law that is scheduled to take effect March 14, such as a rule that gives them only seven days to relocate to 1,000 feet away from schools, parks and places of worship but does not provide maps to show where they are allowed under the law.

“We want to work with the city to comply with its regulations, but such unreasonable requirements make compliance impossible,” Yamileth Bolanos, operator of the PureLife Alternative Wellness Center, said in a statement.

ASA will keep fighting for patients in court and at City Hall. We have already scored big victories by persuading Councilmembers not to ban collectives or sales of cannabis. Now we have more work to do to make this ordinance work. I hope all of you will join me in asking City Councilmembers to make some big improvements in the ordinance in the weeks and months to come.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Americans for Safe Access (ASA), California, Dispensaries, Legal, Medical Cannabis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.