CITIES STRUGGLE WITH MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Officials Weigh State, Federal Law

It's been 10 years since voters made medical marijuana legal in
California, but in many San Gabriel Valley cities it has been a
matter of months since officials began to consider how to regulate
marijuana dispensaries.

Called everything from "pot clubs" to "compassionate collectives,"
depending on who's talking, they are banned in several local cities,
allowed in few, and temporarily not allowed in many cities where
officials are still deciding whether to bar them or embrace them.
Most cities in the San Gabriel Valley region do not currently allow
dispensaries - Diamond Bar is a notable exception, where one
dispensary is allowed. Whittier also permits them.

Local cities' attention to the issue puts them ahead of the bulk of
California cities, according to the medical marijuana advocacy group
Americans for Safe Access.

"The vast majority of cities in Southern California haven't acted,
so there's nothing in those cities restricting safe access," said
ASA's Los Angeles County field coordinator, Chris Fusco. "A recent
proliferation of dispensaries in Southern California means probably
people have been going to city halls," causing the recent flurry of
bans and moratoriums, he added.

Inaction has resulted in unwelcome surprises in some municipalities,
where dispensaries popped up before the local government developed
any way to regulate them. It's a dilemma that Los Angeles County
faced in unincorporated Hacienda Heights. The county has since
developed a permit process, which legalized the pot collectives in
unincorporated areas in June 2006.

In part to avoid similar surprises, many local cities have enacted
moratoriums that bar dispensaries from opening until officials write
new codes to regulate them. Baldwin Park, Rosemead and South El
Monte are among the few cities that have not tackled the issue
in some form. Even Rosemead is leaning toward a ban, said Deputy
City Manager Oliver Chi.

"There's a negative perception to having a drug dispensary in the
community," Chi said.

Beyond that, many cities are concerned about breaking the law.

"What the local agencies are grappling with is this discrepancy
between federal and state law," said Ray Hamada, the planning
director in Irwindale, which has a moratorium. The problem, he
explained, is that while California voters legalized medical
marijuana with Proposition 215 in November 1996, federal law still
bans all marijuana use.

Monterey Park's city manager, Chris Jeffers, said his city had a
moratorium for the same reason. The city is leaning toward a ban in
order to comply with federal law, but hasn't finished studying the
issue, he said.

"Ultimately, we want to make sure that whatever we do doesn't put us
in anybody's cross hairs," Jeffers added.

County Supervisor Don Knabe, whose district includes the dispensary
in Hacienda Heights, said a ban would have been his first choice.

"But the legal opinion that we got was that we couldn't ban them,"
Knabe said. "So it's not about whether medical marijuana is right or
wrong. The voters said they wanted it, and it's our job in local
government to ensure that it's dispensed in the right places, to
keep our neighborhoods and children safe."

But scattered cities - including Azusa, Covina, Pasadena and Walnut
- - have banned the dispensaries outright, citing federal law. Knabe
sympathized, saying that while medical marijuana could be useful to
people with serious medical problems, he would have preferred a way
to allow pharmacies to dispense the product instead of neighborhood
dispensaries. However, banning the dispensaries was playing with
fire, he said. Pasadena is already being sued.

"Those cities could be subject to litigation if a dispensary wants
to locate in the community," he said. "We were told we wouldn't win that one."