Pubdate: Wed, 25 May 2005 Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2005 San Gabriel Valley Tribune Contact: http://www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,205%257E12239%257E,00.html Website: http://www.sgvtribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3725 Cited: Gonzales v. Raich ( www.angeljustice.org/ ) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) 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.