IS NEIGHBORHOOD GOING TO POT?

THE county should take another look at locating a medical marijuana
dispensary in the heart of Hacienda Heights, an unincorporated area
in the east San Gabriel Valley that sits adjacent to north Whittier.

The proposed "cannabis club' would be less than a mile from two
elementary schools, two parks and the community library. Just the
wrong place for impressionable children to learn that a drug their
parents tell them to steer clear of is being freely dispensed in
their neighborhood to folks who have a doctor's note.

If this were a regular, regulated medical clinic, there might be
little outcry or fear. However, reports out of Northern California
indicate the clubs there have proved to be not-so-swell neighbors,
geared more toward routine marijuana users, even allowing use on the premises.

Such loose rules and operation need to be tightened if the general
public is to be convinced that such dispensaries are anything more
than an end-run around laws forbidding the possession, sale and
cultivation of marijuana.

Doctors declared and the people of California agreed in 1996 that
those who needed the drug ought to be allowed to use marijuana. But
since the Compassionate Use Act was enacted to allow marijuana use
for those with AIDS, anorexia, arthritis, cancer, chronic pain,
glaucoma, migraines and more, the issue of just how to dispense it
has been mired in federal courts.

The federal government maintains the distribution and possession of
marijuana is illegal under any circumstances. Monday U.S. Supreme
Court justices heard arguments in a California case that will
determine if patients here and in 10 other states can continue to use
marijuana.

Regardless of the court's decision, the Legislature should enact
needed uniform regulation. Until then, cities such as Pasadena, that
recently instituted a temporary ban on such marijuana distributing
centers, are right to take a wait-and-see attitude.

Pasadena Police took a pro-active stance and approached the City
Council, requesting the ban, saying clubs elsewhere had attracted
criminal elements.

We would have liked to see the same arguments from Sheriff Lee Baca
and Supervisor Don Knabe in whose district the club is proposed.
Knabe announced yesterday he will pursue zoning guidelines for such
clubs. It is a good first step in protecting our neighborhoods. Until
they are in place, the county should delay establishing any cannabis
dispensaries.

For our part, if physicians feel marijuana is the proper
prescription, we'd rather see it's distribution be through
pharmacies, accustomed to handling narcotics and other mood-altering
drugs, not storefronts that appear to set up their own rules and
regulations, including the selling of hashish as reportedly occurred
in one location.

Cultivation, dispensing and use need tighter controls. And those who
genuinely need the drug to deal with nausea or chronic pain ought to
welcome the distinction between them and those who just want a legal
means and place to get high.