MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES BANNED IN HIGHLAND

Permanent: The Highland City Council is one of a growing number of
governments to take the action.

HIGHLAND -- The moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries in
Highland will become permanent next month.

The City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday night to give final approval to an
ordinance banning the dispensaries. There was no discussion.

The decision came nine months after the council first imposed a
moratorium on the dispensaries and three months before the moratorium
was due to expire.

The Highland City Council is one of a growing number of governments
to ban dispensaries either permanently or temporarily. Among the
others are San Bernardino, Yucaipa, Loma Linda, Beaumont and San
Bernardino County. Earlier this month, the Calimesa City Council
extended what had been a 45-day ban through Oct. 19, 2010.

California communities have been enacting bans after the U.S. Supreme
Court declined in May to hear challenges by San Bernardino and San
Diego counties to a law enacted by state voters in 1996
decriminalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

In a report prepared for the Highland council last month, city
planners noted that federal law still prohibits the possession and
sale of marijuana. They also cited a California Police Chiefs
Association report "detailing the negative secondary effects
associated with medical marijuana dispensaries."

Medical marijuana advocates have contended that dispensaries are
legal under state law and that banning them will force medical
marijuana patients with legal permits to buy marijuana on the black
market.