For Profit / Non Profit

A COMPARISON OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAMS IN CALIFORNIA AND OREGON

I think Oregon is definitely on the right track. Giving the ownership
of medical marijuana to patients was an important step that I hope
California will be able to replicate in the future." So says Scott T.
Imler, co-author of Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative that
legalized medical marijuana in California.

Imler, pastor at Crescent Heights United Methodist Church, was the
founder of the now-extinct Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center
(LACRC), a model co-op that distributed medical marijuana to 960
meticulously screened patients. "We were in full compliance with state
law. Even the Los Angeles county sheriff considered the LACRC a Heroic
endeavor," according to Imler.

It took but a few months of operation for Imler to determine that
buying marijuana and reselling it to patients would not work for two
reasons: patients were unable to afford the high prices and the center
did not want to continue supporting the black market. Imler's solution
was to convince the West Hollywood city counsel to purchase a building
for the LACRC that would allow them to grow their own medicine for
distribution to patients.

"We were granted non-profit status as a co-operative. We had a board
of directors and all members had a vote in the operation of the co-op.
We did everything by the book." Imler recounts.

Enter the Feds. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) demonstrated its
willingness to go after legitimate organizations when it raided the
LACRC on October 25, 2001, destroying its gardens and seizing its
equipment and records. In doing so, they ran into immediate and strong
opposition from West Hollywood city officials and Local law
enforcement, who refused to cooperate in the raid. The effect of this
and other federal actions has been to further drive growing and
selling of medical marijuana into the netherworld of the black market,
putting patients at risk of law enforcement and unaffordable medicine.
Market forces drive economic activities, and in the case of
California, those forces created expensive dispensaries.

Imler says he is sickened at what is going on today in California in
the name of compassion. "Our medical marijuana program is going into
the toilet. Dispensaries are offering no charitable services and
charging patients outrageous amounts for medical marijuana. Almost
none of the dispensaries in California grow their own marijuana."

These dispensaries routinely refer "would-be patients" to an 'in house
doc-in-the-box'" who provides a recommendation to any one with the
cash, according to Imler.

Imler recounts a story about one dispensary that was issuing cards to
high school kids who openly admitted they had no medical need. He
estimates there are probably about fifteen to twenty thousand real
patients in California.

"Nothing in Prop. 215 allows for the sale of marijuana to anyone. We
created Prop. 215 so that patients would not have to deal with black
market profiteers. But today it is all about the money. Most of the
dispensaries operating in California are little more than dope dealers
with store fronts. It's outrageous that a decade after Prop. 215
passed, people still can't get the medical marijuana they need." Imler
says.

Prop. 215, the ten-year-old voter-approved initiative that made
medical marijuana use legal with a doctor's recommendation, does not
state how a person should obtain marijuana. The law encourages "state
and federal governments" to come up with a plan that gives patients
safe and affordable access to the medicinal herb marijuana.

State Senate Bill 420, signed into law two years ago, tried to clean
up some of Prop. 215's unanswered questions. It specified how much
marijuana, both dried and in plant form, a person could possess and
required counties to create an identification-card program to
recognize legitimate patients. SB-420 also allows a person to appoint
a "primary caregiver" to grow marijuana for them and then, according
to the law, pay that person "for actual expenses, including reasonable
compensation." Some have interpreted this to allow
dispensaries.

Because of the widespread abuse of California's medical marijuana law,
San Diego, San Bernardino and Merced counties have recently filed a
law suite in state court seeking to overturn California's medical
marijuana law. They contend that federal laws prohibiting all use of
marijuana invalidate state laws that allow qualified patients to use
medical marijuana. Many other counties have created ordinances that
block the operation of dispensaries.

Imler said that he hopes that Oregon law will become the model for
California when they finally amend their medical marijuana laws. He
believes a statewide registration system like the one in Oregon would
help legitimize California's embattled program.

In a side-by-side comparison, it is easy to see the different paths
California and Oregon have taken concerning medical marijuana.
California's "for-profit" choice to allow commerce has in effect
turned its program over to black market profiteers. Oregon's
"non-profit" choice to ban sale of marijuana to anyone and have all
medicine owned by legitimate card-holders, who can only give away--not
sell--excess medicine to other legitimate card-holders, has turned its
program over to the patients who need it most.

Until the federal government changes its position on medical marijuana
and stops going after any group that legitimately tries to provide
marijuana to patients, as they did with Imler, only small
non-commercial grow-sites will be safe from federal meddling and the
DEA. This is the lesson learned so painfully by Scott Imler and the
patients in California, and it is the firm foundation for success of
Oregon's medical marijuana program.