Pubdate: Tue, 07 May 2013
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2013 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Denny Walsh

HIGH COURT SIDES WITH CITIES WISHING TO BAN POT SHOPS

Local governments in California may ban the manufacture, distribution 
and sale of medical marijuana within their boundaries, even though 
state law allows those activities under certain circumstances, the 
California Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The high court declared that neither of the two state statutes 
governing medical marijuana prohibits a city or county from invoking 
a total ban.

Associate Justice Marvin R. Baxter, who authored the unanimous 
opinion, wrote that California's statutes are very limited and are 
careful to strike a delicate balance in a controversial area of 
federal and state relations.

California laws "remove state level criminal and civil (penalties) 
from specified medical marijuana activities," he wrote in the 42-page 
opinion, "but they do not establish a comprehensive state system of 
legalized medical marijuana, or grant a right of convenient access to 
marijuana for medicinal use ... or mandate local accommodation of 
medical cooperatives, collectives or dispensaries."

The much-anticipated opinion stems from a Riverside zoning ordinance 
prohibiting the use of property in the city as a marijuana 
dispensary. The city categorizes storefront pot shops as public nuisances.

Under the ordinance, Riverside brought a nuisance action against the 
Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center. A trial court 
issued a preliminary injunction barring the center from distributing 
marijuana. A court of appeal upheld the injunction, and all seven 
justices of the state's highest court sided Monday with the two lower courts.

Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said 
193 cities and 20 counties in California ban medical pot shops.

In a news release, the group's chief counsel, Joe Elford, said the 
Supreme Court's opinion "ignores the needs of thousands of patients 
across the state."

"Notably," Elford added, "the high court deferred to the ... 
Legislature to establish a clearer regulatory system for the 
distribution of medical marijuana, which advocates and state 
officials are currently working on."

Two regulatory bills  SB 439 and AB 473  are now pending in the Legislature.

At a news conference outside the Capitol, medical marijuana advocates 
said the mayors of four cities  San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland and 
Berkeley  sent letters to lawmakers Monday supporting passage of a 
law that would detail statewide regulations applicable to all stages 
of medical marijuana, from garden to patient.

The advocates also noted that Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson recently 
sent a letter to Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, 
D-Sacramento, in support of the Senate bill.

The city of Sacramento does not have a ban on dispensaries, but 
employs land-use restrictions to control how and where they operate, 
according to City Attorney Jim Sanchez. Dispensaries generally can't 
locate within 600 feet of schools and other select locations, and 
they must have security measures in place to prevent burglaries and 
robberies, he said.

Monday's high court decision "provides additional legal authority for 
what we do," Sanchez said.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, sponsor of the Assembly 
bill, pointed out Monday that nothing in the Supreme Court's language 
prevents the Legislature from adopting an approach that addresses the 
power of local jurisdictions to invoke their own regulations.

"To me, that sounds like a call for the Legislature to act," Ammiano 
said. "I hope to move toward that different approach so we can ensure 
that patients have access to medical cannabis wherever they live. 
That's what the voters of California wanted when they passed the 
Compassionate Use Act" as a ballot initiative in 1996.

The medical marijuana dispensary that challenged Riverside's 
ordinance insisted that a blanket prohibition is in conflict with the 
Compassionate Use Act and the Medical Marijuana Program, which was 
added to the state's laws in 2003 in an attempt to clarify some of 
the ambiguities in the ballot measure. One of its specific purposes 
was to "enhance the access of patients and caregivers to medical 
marijuana through collective, cooperative cultivation projects."

But, writing for the court, Baxter said the California Constitution 
gives cities and counties "broad authority to determine ... 
appropriate uses of land."

Couple that constitutional edict with the fact that nothing in the 
two state statutes "expressly or impliedly limits (that) inherent 
authority," and there is no impediment to the Riverside ordinance or 
any other local law, even one that totally excludes growing and 
selling medical marijuana, the justices concluded.

[sidebar]

PLACES THAT BAN MEDICAL POT SHOPS

Cities: Davis, Elk Grove, Folsom, Lincoln, Lodi, Nevada City, 
Rocklin, Roseville, Wheatland, Woodland and Yuba City.

Counties: Amador, Butte, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sutter, Sacramento

Source: Americans for Safe Access
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom