CITY CAN'T HIDE FROM MEDICAL POT FOREVER

California's experiment with medical marijuana has not worked as
expected. Confusion and corruption reign in about equal measures.

We can't blame the Visalia City Council for its action this week in
continuing to prolong a ban on sale of medical marijuana in the city
limits, even though we have criticized the council in the past for its
position.

Things have not changed for the better with the medical-marijuana
laws. In fact, they have only gotten worse. For every example of
individuals who are using marijuana legally and therapeutically, there
are probably 10 examples where the intent of the law is twisted to
permit illegal sale, use and trafficking.

The state of California is still not providing enough support for its
individual jurisdictions on administering the medical-marijuana law.

We had hoped that it would, but clearly things have not improved. Most
jurisdictions, even ones that had embraced the medical-marijuana law,
are pulling back from their support. So it is understandable that the
Visalia City Council prefers to take the conservative approach and ban
the sale of medical marijuana altogether.

We continue to urge the city and the council not to make this their
final word on the subject.

That appears to be the track that the council has chosen. Monday, the
council unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance that
would prohibit sale of marijuana in city limits. It would also limit
the amount of marijuana that could be grown for personal use in the
city limits.

Again, it's hard to argue with those decisions considering how the law
is working so far. As Councilman Warren Gubler attested, the
Compassionate Care Act, passed by California voters in 1996, could be
the most abused law in California. In permitting the cultivation and
sale of marijuana for medical purposes but without any restrictions or
provisions for oversight, the law created a confusing mess in which
legitimate use and criminal use are equivalent.

In community after community in California, the results of rampant
implementation of the law without oversight have been tragically
apparent. Neighborhoods have become havens for drug trafficking.
Criminal businesses sprout up under cover of legitimacy. Individuals
routinely flout the law to take advantage of marijuana use with no
medicinal purpose whatever.

Use of drugs in the United States is a huge contradiction anyway. We
are a society that relies on medication and fails to practice
restraint while blurring the line between what is legal and what is
not. California's medical-marijuana law simply contributes to the
overall confusion.

But California voters approved the medical-marijuana law, and
marijuana does have a place in the realm of medical treatment. That
doesn't even begin to approach the argument of whether marijuana
itself ought to be legalized totally.

Visalia is right to take a strictly conservative approach for now.
There are too many instances where the law has led to conditions that
ruined neighborhoods. Eventually, the city will have to deal with the
reality of the law. And the reality is that medical-marijuana use and
sale is legal in California.

Continued denial of that law will lead to plaintive legal action, to
contradiction of enforcement and to reversal in court. It already has
in Tulare County.

Ultimately, the law properly administered can serve some Visalia
residents. Eventually, the city will have to figure out a way to live
with the medical-marijuana law with a policy that is more
sophisticated than simply denying it exists.