Pubdate: Mon, 18 May 2015
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830
Author: Alicia Robinson

Palm Springs

POT DISPENSARIES NO PROBLEM FOR CITY

Officials say the facilities provide an important service and haven't 
caused complaints, and many residents seem unconcerned.

Inside a squat, dimly-lit building so close to Palm Springs 
International Airport you want to duck when a plane comes in, 
customers are waiting for medical marijuana.

They trickle in, one or two at a time, show their ID and doctor's 
recommendation at a lobby window, then sit until they're buzzed in 
through the security doors to where the product is kept.

This dispensary, Organic Solutions of the Desert, is one of four 
facilities authorized to operate in Palm Springs. Something like it 
could be in Riverside's future if voters approve Measure A on June 2.

Operators of Organic Solutions, which opened in 2011, say they strive 
to be a professional, law-abiding and high-quality facility. City 
leaders say the permitted dispensaries, which they call cooperatives, 
haven't caused problems or generated community dissent. And residents 
either aren't concerned about the dispensaries or don't know they exist.

"We're not drug dealers with a storefront," said Shanden Sessions, 
Organic Solutions of the Desert's general manager. "We're providing 
safe access to medication that these people truly need."

MAKING RULES

Riverside voters are poised to decide whether to allow up to 10 
medical marijuana dispensaries to open in the city's commercial and 
industrial zones, and to allow mobile dispensaries. Put forward by 
residents and opposed by city officials, Measure A would set rules: 
dispensaries must have security guards and cameras, and they would 
have to be at least 1,000 feet from schools and other dispensaries.

Palm Springs' rules are slightly different, requiring that facilities 
be in industrial zones and at least 500 feet from schools, day cares, 
parks, churches and homes. They must be 1,000 feet from other dispensaries.

Riverside officials say their control would be limited to issuing 
permits. Some residents and business owners have voiced concerns 
about increased crime and marijuana getting into the hands of children.

Those issues don't seem to have materialized in Palm Springs, where 
the City Council approved rules for dispensaries in 2008.

City Councilwoman Ginny Foat said she'd worked with children and 
families with AIDS and had seen how medical marijuana could help.

So when residents with HIV and cancer began asking for a way to 
obtain medical marijuana near home, "we just decided that this was 
really important."

The council started by permitting two dispensaries, then three, then 
four, but limited where they can locate. Mobile dispensaries are 
prohibited, though permitted facilities can deliver.

Officials voted this month to allow dispensaries in some commercial 
areas and have discussed increasing the number of permits. Council 
members felt the rules were working and existing cooperatives were 
doing a good job, Palm Springs City Attorney Doug Holland said. Also, 
demand for the facilities warranted giving more permits, he said.

A 2013 voter-approved tax on dispensaries brings in an estimated 
$900,000 a year for city services. Sessions said Organic Solutions 
gives back to the community, citing examples such as $5,000 for 
senior center Christmas trees and donations to the homeless shelter 
and Desert Arc, which helps the developmentally disabled.

Sessions said his facility has a good relationship with the police. 
Holland said the biggest problem hasn't been the city-permitted 
dispensaries, but illegal ones.

"We have not had any complaints about the ... existing legal 
operations," Holland said. "I think we've closed about 15 illegals."

Police officials could not be reached for comment.

Following Palm Springs' lead, fellow Coachella Valley cities Desert 
Hot Springs and Cathedral City have recently begun approving a 
limited number of dispensaries. Now Palm Springs officials are 
creating a testing program that would check marijuana products for 
herbicides and other chemicals, Holland said.

Organic Solutions of the Desert already does testing, Sessions said. 
Its products are lab-checked for potency, pesticides, mold and mites 
to ensure quality and that a few contaminated plants don't ruin the 
rest that are grown on site.

Two growing rooms, equipped with 1,000-watt hydroponic lights and 
ventilation fans, each hold about 100 marijuana plants in various 
stages of maturity. Once a plant is ready to harvest  three to four 
and a half months after cloning, or being clipped from a more mature 
plant  the bud-bearing stems are trimmed of their leaves and hung to dry.

On Thursday, May 14, eight men and women sat around a table chatting 
as they clipped leaves away from finished buds. Sessions said the 
nonprofit cooperative has 20 full-time and 15 part-time employees. 
Some of its 16,000 members volunteer.

Among the volunteers were Megan Armstrong, a 43-year-old Palm Desert 
resident. A mother of three who farms citrus and date trees, 
Armstrong said she's used medical marijuana about 15 years, since she 
was overcome with depression after a series of deaths in the family, 
including her sister's.

She doesn't like the way pharmaceutical drugs affect her, so 
marijuana "has offered a really good solution," she said while 
trimming marijuana leaves with a small pair of pruning shears. "It 
really helped calm my depression and anxiety."

Around the corner from the bud trimming table is a customer counter, 
backed by glass jars of buds and displays of edible marijuana 
products such as pretzels, brownies and candy bars. Organic Solutions 
takes credit cards, and its operating hours - 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday 
through Saturday - are set by the city.

Residents and dispensary neighbors seem unconcerned with the 
operations. Across the street and a few doors from Organic Solutions, 
A.J Juan, 63, owns an Oriental food market. He's noticed the 
dispensary is always busy, but he said his only complaint is parking.

"Sometimes I've got no space for my customers," he said.

Down the street at Classic Cuts barber shop, customers Paul Paramo 
and Brian Guzman had no complaints.

Guzman, 21, said his mother has used marijuana oil and edibles to 
ease the pain of her stage 4 lung cancer, though she doesn't approve 
of smoking the drug.

A four-year Palm Springs resident, Paramo, 45, said the dispensaries 
"haven't really affected me at all ... If it helps people, I don't 
have any problem with it at all."

Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce President James Canfield, who also 
runs the convention center, said he's not aware of any complaints 
about marijuana cooperatives.

"It's never really been a topic of discussion for us at the chamber," 
he said. "I think the concept that some people don't even know 
they're here is probably a testament to the profile that they keep in 
the community."

Kevin Kirkpatrick, 68, who stopped by the city's senior center 
Thursday, wasn't aware Palm Springs had dispensaries. A psychologist 
and seven-year city resident, he said he would probably research the 
issue before forming an opinion.

Lynn Simonson, 72, came to the senior center for the weekly farmers' market.

"I'm for it. I've known several people who've availed themselves" of 
medical marijuana, said Simonson, who teaches senior exercise 
classes. "You need the doctor's prescription, so it's controlled."

Foat, the councilwoman, said she's happy with how the dispensaries 
are working, and officials are already preparing for a possible 2016 
statewide measure that would legalize recreational marijuana.

Some people raised early concerns about allowing dispensaries, Foat 
said, but reality has been different.

"All the really scary things people were saying have not come to fruition."

[sidebar]

POLITICS OF POT: Riverside's Medical Marijuana Measure

Second of Two Parts

TODAY, SUNDAY, May 17: If Riverside voters approve Measure A, up to 
10 medical marijuana dispensaries could open in commercial and 
industrial zones. What do neighbors and businesses in or near those 
zones think about the initiative?

MONDAY, May 18: One Inland city has had pot dispensaries for several 
years and may allow more: Palm Springs. How have the facilities 
worked there, and what do people and city leaders think about them?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom