CITY BANS POT DISPENSARIES, BUT NEW ORDINANCE LEAVES COOPERATIVES ALONE

LAKE ELSINORE ---- Medicinal marijuana dispensaries will be banned
from setting up in the city, the City Council decided Tuesday while
making it clear that it will not target groups of patients who pool
their resources to grow or obtain the drug.

The city does not have any dispensaries now operating within its
borders. The only two in the county are in Palm Desert and Palm Springs.

After the council voted 5-0 to adopt the ordinance Tuesday, medicinal
marijuana advocates at the meeting had mixed reaction.

On one hand, they said, the city was wise in leaving alone the
patient groups known as collectives or cooperatives. On the other
hand, they said, medicinal marijuana dispensaries are the only places
where some patients can get it easily and safely.

"It's a compromise," said Lake Elsinore resident Stephen Roper, who
said he has AIDS and uses medicinal marijuana. "It allows us to do
what we have to do."

"It's a start," said Temecula resident LaVonne Victor, who said she
uses the drug to treat her multiple sclerosis. "At least they're
willing to work with us."

The council considered the ordinance at the request of Lake Elsinore
police Chief Louis Fetherolf, who told members that colleagues in
places where medicinal marijuana dispensaries are operating reported
that there were a bevy of public safety issues concerning the facilities.

Among them, he said, are that marijuana is being sold illegally
within them, that marijuana is being smoked in the areas surrounding
them and that robberies are taking place in and around the dispensaries.

He also said that, because marijuana was approved by California
voters for medicinal purposes but remains an illegal drug in the eyes
of the federal government, police officers and the city are put in a
position where they have to break one law to uphold another.

In 1996, state voters approved Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use
Act, which allows those with prescriptions from their doctors to
obtain or grow small amounts of marijuana for medicinal purposes. But
that contradicts federal laws, which say all marijuana is illegal and
that it has not medicinal value.

Until the discrepancy between the state and federal laws is solved,
Fetherolf said, it would be best for the city to prohibit
dispensaries within its borders.

"It takes us out of the unenviable position of enforcing one in
violation of the other," he said.

The council appeared to agree with that line of thinking, though
members, and ultimately Fetherolf, agreed that they did not want to
go after the collectives and cooperatives.

Roper was one of those who addressed the council about the medicinal
marijuana groups.

"This is life sustaining," he said. "It's not about the law. It's
about living. Do what you can to keep me alive."

The advocates presented the council language from a temporary ban on
medicinal marijuana dispensaries Temecula passed in 2004 that made it
clear that its ordinance was not aimed at the groups.

Lake Elsinore adopted similar language and became the third Southwest
County city behind Temecula and Murrieta to place a ban or at least a
temporary moratorium on dispensaries. Last month, San Marcos became
the first San Diego County to do the same.