EDITORIAL BOARD SHOULD ACTUALLY READ POT LAWS

As the president of North Coastal Prevention Coalition, a nationally
recognized leader in the prevention of drug and alcohol abuse, I was
dismayed to read the North County Times editorial of Jan. 28
lambasting the county supervisors for their recent passage of an
$11,000 annual fee for medical marijuana dispensaries in the county's
unincorporated areas.

However, my dismay was not the result of the editorial board's
concern about the cost of the fee ---- although I would argue that
the fee was perhaps too low, given the profit that dispensaries make
- but rather in the limited understanding that the North County
Times editorial board displayed as it relates to medical marijuana
laws in California.

To be clear, voters did not enact legislation to allow businesses to
sell marijuana. Proposition 215 did not "legalize" medical marijuana,
as your editorial claims. Instead, it provides for an affirmative
defense against prosecution for those patients who are authorized
through a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

In Prop. 215 and SB 420, there is no mention of pot-shop storefronts.
As a matter of fact, then-Attorney General Jerry Brown's guidelines
were very specific about the state's approach to this issue (local
regulatory control) and the likelihood that dispensaries were not
operating in compliance with the law.

While medical marijuana collectives are required, as you stated, to
be operated as nonprofit institutions, the reality is that they are
raking in high profits. In my opinion, this is because dispensaries
are simply storefronts for drug dealers who hide behind the truly ill
as an excuse to sell drugs to otherwise healthy people, including young adults.

The law provides for the truly sick and their caregivers to
collectively grow marijuana for their needs, not for retail
storefronts to sell a federally illegal Schedule I drug.

In California, 154 cities and 10 counties have enacted bans against
medical marijuana dispensaries. We in the prevention community are
generally in agreement that complete bans at the city and county
level are more appropriate than regulation. However, it appears that
several cities and counties have opted for regulation.

Unfortunately, we have seen regulation fail up and down the state.
Right now, there are two pot shops in the unincorporated area between
Vista and San Marcos violating the county's ordinance.

If this debate was simply about truly sick individuals ---- those
HIV/AIDS and cancer patients profiled when Prop. 215 was sold to the
electorate ---- being allowed to smoke marijuana, few would argue,
including me. However, this is a debate about whether or not we want
storefront drug dealers in our community. Perhaps next time, the
North County Times should check its facts before weighing in on a
topic of such importance to our community.