PALM SPRINGS' ATTORNEY PROPOSES MEDICAL MARIJUANA CO-OPS

The Palm Springs city attorney said he will soon propose that the
city allow medical marijuana cooperatives.

City Attorney Douglas Holland said he has studied the issue for more
than 18 months and plans to bring his proposal to the City Council in
coming weeks. He said cooperatives would satisfy the need of the
people and the laws of the state.

"Those collectives would have to be very narrowly tailored and
organized," Holland said.

If the city council approves the cooperatives, Palm Springs will
become one of the only cities in Riverside County to pass an
ordinance allowing medical marijuana cooperatives.

In recent years, patients with recommendations from their doctors for
medical marijuana have been caught in the crosshairs between state
laws that allow them to have the drug and federal laws against it.

If approved by the City Council, the cooperatives would allow people
with the appropriate paperwork or their caregivers to grow a small
amount of marijuana for personal use, Holland said.

The city attorney's report on the cooperatives is expected to go
before the council by early April, Holland said.

Councilman Lee Weigel, who served as police chief from 1997 to 2002,
said he would have to know where the cooperative would be placed,
what rules would govern it and whether it would attract crime before
he could vote on it.

Weigel said dispensaries in other cities have been robbed and wants
to ensure similar problems would not arise with a cooperative.

"There are a lot of issues that we would have to discuss before it
could be taken to a vote," Weigel said.

Several attempts to reach other members of the City Council,
including the mayor, were not successful.

The growth and distribution of medical marijuana by dispensaries has
been outlawed in unincorporated areas of Riverside County and in many
of its cities.

Valerie Corral and her husband have run a medical marijuana
cooperative in Santa Cruz for 15 years. Volunteers help grow
marijuana on the cooperative's property, harvest it and turn it into
usable products such as baked goods and pills, Corral said.

Patients must have a state medical marijuana card issued by the
counties and are not charged for their marijuana, which is
distributed once a week, Corral said.

Some people grow their own marijuana on the property and return what
they can't use to the cooperative, Corral said.

"When people work together, it is medicine itself," Corral said.