By: Eugene Davidovich and Marcus Boyd

Imperial Beach, CA – On June 15, 2011 at 7pm, the Imperial Beach City Council will discuss and vote to enact an outright ban on medical marijuana dispensaries and all collective cultivation efforts in the City of Imperial Beach.

Although the staff report compiled for the June 15th meeting states, “the ordinances would not ban medical marijuana in the city,” the actual wording of the proposed law goes much further than merely banning storefronts. If approved, medical cannabis patients in Imperial Beach would be banned from associating to collectively or cooperatively cultivate medical marijuana, an activity explicitly authorized and protected under State Law.

(more…)

LA County Supervisor Don Knabe and his colleagues on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission just overturned a ban on raves at the LA Coliseum. The Commission enacted a ban this summer after a 15-year old girl died of a drug overdose at a dance party with over 185,000 attendees.

The LA Times reported Supervisor Knabe’s rationale for lifting the ban:

“There’s a way to do it right where we protect the public and allow this opportunity to take place,” said Supervisor Don Knabe, who serves on the commission and said he preferred regulating raves at the publicly owned venue rather than see them “driven to the back alleys.”

Supervisor Knabe’s logic is sound, but his actions are inconsistent. Just nine days earlier, the Supervisor voted to ban medical cannabis patients’ collectives in the unincorporated communities of the county. He and his colleagues adopted the ban despite overwhelming opposition from community members, who asked instead for tighter regulations (the same kind the Commission will impose on raves). The advocates’ rationale was the same as the Supervisor’s. A ban just pushes medical cannabis back into the shadows, and that is bad for legal patients and their communities.

(more…)

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office has filed a complaint (download sections 1- 2 -3 – 4) asking for a Temporary Restraining Order and Permanent Injunction closing 135 pre-moratorium medical cannabis collectives deemed ineligible to register under the city’s new ordinance. The complaint is City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s latest escalation in his campaign to roll back safe access to medical cannabis in the city. His aggressive posture has already raised the ire of patients, legal collective operators, and advocates in the state’s largest city – including many who played an instrumental role in developing and promoting regulation in the city.

(more…)

Today, the Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District continued the case of Qualified Patients Association v. City of Anaheim into the indefinite future.  The Court requested additional briefing from all parties and amici on the significance of the Medical Marijuana Program Act’s exemption of collectives from state laws relating to nuisances.  In particular, the court wants the parties to address whether the legislative intent of the Medical Marijuana Program Act was to preempt municipalities from banning dispensaries. Americans for Safe Access will respond with a brief by January 15th.

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.
(more…)

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…)