STUDY CHALLENGES CLAIM THAT MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES ATTRACT CRIME

PALM SPRINGS - As efforts to open medical marijuana dispensaries have
intensified, so has the debate over whether they bring more crime to
a community.

But an independent study released today finds no link between
marijuana dispensaries and crime.

The Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation analyzed crime rates around
the huge number of pot stores and clubs in Los Angeles County, at one
point believed to outnumber the Starbucks locations there before
officials shut most dispensaries down last year.

Read the RAND study on marijuana dispensaries and crime at www.rand.org

RAND found crime was up to 60 percent higher near the hundreds of
L.A. County dispensaries that authorities shut down compared to those
areas where dispensaries were allowed to stay open.

"If medical marijuana dispensaries are causing crime, then there
should be a drop in crime when they close," said Mireille Jacobson,
the study's lead author and a RAND senior economist.

"Individual dispensaries may attract crime or create a neighborhood
nuisance, but we found no evidence that medical marijuana
dispensaries in general cause crime to rise," Jacobson added.

Palm Springs is the only city in Riverside County to license pot
dispensaries. It limits the number allowed to three out of concerns
that too many dispensaries could lead to crime and create a public nuisance.

That cap hasn't stopped scores of other underground dispensaries from
opening in Palm Springs, however. City officials have forced six
unlicensed facilities to close their doors in recent years. And as
many as seven unlicensed dispensaries presently operate in the city,
according to WeedMaps.com, an online guide.

Palm Springs police Chief Al Franz did not respond to multiple
requests for comment on the RAND report Monday and Tuesday. City
Manager David Ready did not respond to a phone message left on Tuesday.

At a 2009 meeting in which the City Council voted to draft its
medical pot ordinance, then-Palm Springs police Chief David Dominguez
said there had been two documented crimes related to the six
unlicensed collectives operating in the city at the time.

Still, the RAND findings challenge the repeated assertions by law
enforcement in the valley and beyond that medical pot dispensaries
spur more crime.

Much of the evidence to back up law enforcement's claims, including a
2009 white paper by the California Police Chiefs Association Task
Force on Medical Marijuana, cites anecdotal break-ins, robberies,
attacks and even murders linked to medical marijuana.

Ever since California voters passed a measure to allow medical
cannabis use in 1996, dispensaries have been hijacked by criminals
looking to exploit the lucrative drug, law enforcement officials say.
Medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

While that hijacking may sound plausible, "we know of no systematic
evaluation of the claim that dispensaries themselves attract or cause
crime," the new RAND study states.

CannaHelp, hidden in an industrial-zoned enclave near downtown Palm
Springs, is a permitted medical marijuana dispensary and has been in
business longer than any other licensed operation. The facility
opened about a year ago and has about 3,000 members, according to
owner Stacy Hochanadel.

CannaHelp has never been broken into, and its 36 security cameras and
nightly uniformed guard patrols also help protect the nearby Tahquitz
River Estates residential neighborhood, Hochanadel said Tuesday.

Homeless people routinely ransack trash cans there, leaving garbage
and debris around, he said, and he believes the security patrols help
deter more serious trouble.

"If we weren't here they could basically be going nuts. They would be
going after the whole neighborhood," Hochanadel added.

He previously ran a dispensary on El Paseo in Palm Desert in 2005.
Despite jewelry stores and banks being robbed on a weekly basis
there, Hochanadel's dispensary was never touched, he said.

He said he even provided Palm Desert police outdoor surveillance tape
once to help their investigation after a nearby robbery.

Eventually, Palm Desert and every other valley city except for Palm
Springs banned medical marijuana dispensaries. Hochanadel closed his
El Paseo shop and reopened in Palm Springs in 2010.

"They always saw me as a disrespect to the image they were trying to
have there," Hochanadel said of his stint in Palm Desert. "How can
you say that when I'm not even noticed?"

Several dispensaries also continue to operate in Thousand Palms,
despite a ban by Riverside County on facilities in unincorporated areas.