CIVIC ACTIVISTS IN L.A. HAVE GROWING APPETITE TO CURB MEDICAL MARIJUANA CLINICS

When residents in the Eagle Rock area found nearly a dozen facilities
in a 2-mile radius, they petitioned City Hall for a say in how the
shops are approved.

The little clinic rests along a graceful curve of Eagle Rock
Boulevard also occupied by a karate studio, a barber and a smattering
of modest houses, one with a basketball hoop. The building, marked
only by a metal placard that says "Cornerstone," is unremarkable, by design.

In the waiting room, patients sit on stylish lounge chairs, flipping
through magazines. There are dark bamboo floors and walls painted in
shades of blue, chosen to foster warmth and serenity.

Each patient is escorted to a back room. There, workers wait behind a
steel, L-shaped bar. The air is full of Brazilian jazz and the
pungent, sugary scent of the only medication dispensed here:
marijuana, premium strains of it, dried into meaty buds, stacked up
in tall mason jars and sold for $15 to $20 a gram.

Officials and neighborhood activists in this corner of Los Angeles
were taken aback recently when they discovered that their community
was home to nearly a dozen of these medical marijuana dispensaries,
all within a 2-mile radius, mostly in Eagle Rock but also in Highland
Park and Glassell Park.

The dispensaries, civic leaders say, appear to be legal operations --
not businesses, technically, but "collectives" of people who take
marijuana to treat symptoms and side effects of arthritis, AIDS,
anorexia, cancer and other ailments.

Those expressing concern say it is less about the facilities'
legitimacy and more about local control -- whether a neighborhood has
a voice in determining where dispensaries can open and, in
particular, whether so many should be allowed in such a small area.
They argue that in some cases, the clinics are subject to fewer
restrictions than a new liquor store -- even a new drugstore or a yogurt shop.

But here at the Cornerstone Collective, few understand what the
hoopla is about. Operators and clients believe firmly that marijuana
is vital to the healthcare needs of people who are in pain or have
lost their appetites or cannot sleep. They argue that it is a belief
that the California public generally embraces, along with the idea
that law enforcement's long fight against marijuana has been
misguided and wasteful.

It is still a messy debate, five years after a voter initiative and a
state Senate bill legalized the possession and cultivation of
marijuana for qualified patients. Local, state and federal laws are
in conflict, the courts haven't been much help and Los Angeles'
moratorium on new dispensaries will run out in the next few months.

At City Hall, officials are drafting, finally, a set of guidelines
for the facilities. That effort is controversial. Some law
enforcement officials believe that abuse is frequent at the clinics
and that some clients don't require marijuana, while some City
Council members are concerned that the proposed rules threaten the
existence of legitimate dispensaries. But around here, both sides,
anxious for direction and certainty, agree that guidelines -- even
imperfect and incomplete -- cannot come fast enough.

In Eagle Rock, the debate over marijuana began at another
unremarkable storefront, this one on Colorado Boulevard, a pillbox of
a building with peeling cobalt paint. There used to be a comic shop
here. Perhaps the contrast between that child-friendly business and
what has been proposed for the site -- a dispensary whose owner has
distributed hard-stock fliers promising "connoisseur quality"
marijuana and a free gram on a client's first visit -- has not aided
the would-be proprietor's chances.

Last May, a sign appeared on the building's facade heralding the
arrival of a new business: Green Goddess Collective. It didn't take
long for Eagle Rock's activists to figure out what kind of business
the Goddess would be. That raised a question: Were there any others
in the area?

"Someone said, 'I think there are two or three,' " said Bob Arranaga,
an Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council member and chairman of its land
use and planning committee. "Someone else said, 'Three or four.' " A
quick investigation found 11.

"I was flabbergasted," said Brian Heckmann, Neighborhood Council
treasurer, an attorney and area resident for 21 years. "I wasn't
aware that there were any."

At that point, Arranaga acknowledged with a chuckle, it became an
old-fashioned case of not-in-my-backyard. Not all, but many of those
upset over the Goddess, including Arranaga, had voted for the 1996
ballot initiative that made the use of medicinal marijuana legal in California.

"That was a state vote," Arranaga said. "But here? In small
communities like this? I don't think anybody really got what we were
voting for."

The leaders are lobbying the city to deny the Goddess' "hardship"
application, which is required for it to open because of the
moratorium on new marijuana dispensaries. The Goddess was forced
recently to abandon another location after a lease dispute; the
facility's representatives say that should qualify as a "hardship";
civic leaders say it should not.

Daniel Stein, the proprietor of the Goddess and operator of several
dispensaries in the past, could not be reached for comment. But Frank
Paul Angelillo IV, a general contractor Stein hired to remodel the
proposed Goddess location, fiercely defended his friend of 15 years.
Stein, he said, is being persecuted for offering a legal public
service, one that has made him very little money over the years.

"I'm really ticked off. It's like the few trying to tell the many
what they want," Angelillo said. "It's not a terrible drug. This is a
drug manufactured by Mother Nature."

But in documents sent to the City Council, civic activists have made
clear that this is not about the drug. Many of the dispensaries, they
point out, are not subject to the standards that other new businesses
are, such as the requirement for public hearings. They have asked for
that to change.

There are also few regulations regarding the facilities' placement,
resulting in "clusters" of dispensaries here and in such places as
North Hollywood and Van Nuys. They have asked the City Council to
limit the facilities to one per 3-mile radius.

"No one is here to fight medical marijuana dispensaries," Arranaga
said. "We just don't like the proliferation. And we feel we have no
say in the matter."

Back at the Cornerstone, under the watchful eye of a security guard
in a suit, director Michael Backes is behind the bar. Using a pair of
chopsticks, he removes a thick bud from a jar labeled "Sunkyst" and
holds it under a powerful magnifying glass for two clients.

In measured tones, he offers advice: Be careful when using marijuana
in a recipe; cooking changes its character. No, holding one's breath
before exhaling does not deliver a greater dose. "And if you want
relief, just hit the sweet spot," he tells them. "Beyond that, you
are burning very expensive incense."

Like most clinic operators, Backes keeps a low profile. He agreed to
open his doors to help demystify the facilities in the public mind.

Backes is 55. Several years ago, he began suffering from debilitating
migraines. He discovered that using pot -- "just a little" -- helped
considerably.

He opened his dispensary in March 2007. Yes, his mother knows and
trusts him to do the right thing, he said. His revenue is less than
$1,000 a day, his profit margin in the low single digits. His stock
is refrigerated and stored at 65% humidity. He carries between 200
and 300 active patients, each required to have a doctor's
recommendation for marijuana as a treatment.

He is not open to the public and does not permit sampling on the
premises -- "any more than CVS allows you to take a Percocet in the
parking lot," he said. "I live in this neighborhood," Backes said. "I
walk to work. I want this place to have zero negative impact."

A few minutes later, Ruben Rios walked out with a small canister of marijuana.

Rios, 35, a manufacturing engineer and father of two, has suffered
from an eating disorder since he was a teenager; he uses marijuana as
an appetite stimulant. Without it, he said, he would eat a banana in
the morning and not be hungry until the next day -- and would be 30
pounds underweight. Today, after a year of marijuana use, the
5-foot-11 Rios is a healthy 163 pounds.

"People think of dealers standing on the corner and shoving things
through your car window. It's not like that," he said. "Marijuana
does good things. It really does."