PUTTING A LID ON POT SALES

Weeding Out Illegitimate Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Is a Job for
the Cops, Not the City Council.

For-profit medical marijuana dispensers beware: The city of Los
Angeles is focusing its finest legal and political minds on putting
you out of business. And if you want to see what happens when you run
afoul of this crack team of nuisance abaters, just look at the fate
of those trying to put up illegal billboards all over town.

Oops, bad example. L.A. has been trying for years to limit
billboards, only to violate its own ordinance by carving out
exceptions and see its ban overturned in court. That doesn't mean
city officials couldn't do a better job with marijuana, but their
record doesn't inspire confidence.

The City Council has been trying unsuccessfully for two years to stop
the spread of dispensaries, issuing a moratorium in 2007 but then
failing to enforce it and allowing anyone who claimed "hardship"
status to open a new storefront. That moratorium was voided last week
in court, prompting the council to push forward plans for a vote on a
new city ordinance placing heavy restrictions on where and how
marijuana clinics can operate. But the ordinance, now in its fourth
draft, was too tough for some members, so it's headed back for a fifth draft.

Here's a thought for the council: The next time a marijuana ordinance
appears, just say no. The city doesn't need one.

Medical marijuana has become a serious nuisance in L.A. Hundreds of
stores have cropped up in recent years, many concentrated in
downtrodden neighborhoods and bringing a criminal element with them.
There are legitimate marijuana cooperatives serving genuinely ill
patients, yet there are also storefronts pushing pot to recreational
users and raking in illicit profits while getting their supply from
criminal cartels in Mexico and Northern California. The city doesn't
need a new ordinance to get rid of the latter. It could just start
enforcing state law.

In August 2008, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown released a set of guidelines
on possession, cultivation and use of medical marijuana. To operate
legally, distributors must be nonprofit cooperatives or collectives.
The former are democratically controlled operations in which profits
are shared by their members, who are also their patrons. The latter
facilitate transactions between members who are legally entitled to
grow their own marijuana. A later ruling by the California Supreme
Court decreed that medical marijuana distributors must be their
clients' "primary caregivers," meaning someone who has consistently
assumed responsibility for their housing, health or safety. That
rules out a dispensary owner selling trippy buds behind a counter.

A problem caused by a failure to enforce the law won't be solved by
passing a new law. It's time to call in the cops, not the council members.