Pubdate: Fri, 15 Jul 2005
Source: Record, The (Stockton, CA)
Copyright: 2005 The Record
Contact:  http://www.recordnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/428
Author: Michael Fitzgerald
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

MEDICAL POT SHOP ISSUE HANGS IN AIR

Is a marijuana dispensary wafting Stockton's way? The question came 
up this week after the City Council voted not to extend its one-year 
moratorium on medical-marijuana dispensaries. Pot stores sprouted in 
California in 1996 after voters approved Proposition 215, allowing 
seriously ill people and their caregivers to grow and buy and ill 
persons to use medical marijuana. Dozens of dispensaries sprang up in 
the Bay Area. Even Modesto has at least one. But when an Acampo man 
wanted to open one here last year, the council said whoa. Lifting the 
moratorium was not a show of support for dispensaries. On the contrary.

It was the council's way of destroying the illusions of dispensary 
advocates who hoped a studious council might emerge from an extended 
moratorium pro-dispensary. "I was sort of the opinion Stockton should 
not hang on to the moratorium and string these folks along," said 
Mayor Ed Chavez, channeling Shakespeare, who said you must be cruel 
to be kind. So what will happen if somebody now seeks to build a pot 
dispensary in San Joaquin County? There's a process involving zoning 
and the Planning Commission. That doesn't matter, though. Because 
District Attorney Jim Willett has said dispensaries are illegal and 
he'll prosecute them. This brings us to the weirdness of the 
medical-marijuana law. State law is usually consistent. Not so with 
Proposition 215. California's cities have broken up into medieval 
Italian city-states, each with its own standards for pot cultivation 
and distribution. Stockton's take is that medical-marijuana users and 
their caregivers should be left alone.

But dispensaries are not caregivers courts have ruled this way; they 
are for-profit businesses hawking an illegal drug. The DA's position 
is legally accurate. Proposition 215, for all its good intent, is 
seriously flawed.

Its authors made buying pot legal but not selling it. Selling it 
remains illegal. The DA, of all people, cannot be expected to rebel. 
But surely if it's legal for somebody to buy medical marijuana, it 
should be permissible for somebody to sell it. Change the law, 
Willett said. "If that's the will of the people, then clean 215 up 
and legalize those things. "Boy, I'll follow that in a heartbeat." He 
raises an interesting point.

Given that Proposition 215's glaring flaws have been around since 
1996, lawmakers should have fixed them. Yet there appears to be no 
legislation in the works. Somebody get Sacramento on the phone. 
Because Deputy DA Phil Urie warns he may hammer dispensaries with 
criminal and civil actions. "We might even go after them under the 
Business and Professional Code, Section 17200: 'unfair business 
practices,' " Urie said. The unfair practice is selling something 
illegal under federal law, Urie explained. Ah, yes, federal law. The 
feds classify marijuana as a Schedule 1 killer drug right up there 
with heroin. They claim marijuana has no scientifically valid 
medicinal use. Never mind those buttinsky doctors. On the subject of 
marijuana, the feds are the incarnation of reefer madness. But we 
don't have to be. The planning commissioners and City Council members 
should do their homework on this issue and not rely on 
overconservative staff reports, overoptimistic marijuana lobbyists or 
anybody else. They should get clear on the science -- not the law or 
the politics -- which suggests marijuana is a good pain reliever, 
appetite stimulator and antidepressant. They should study how 
dispensaries work in other cities and bone up on the regulations 
necessary to keep them clean. They should develop informed positions, 
pro or con, even if the district attorney exercises a sort of veto power.

Their time to be leaders may yet come.
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MAP posted-by: Beth