Pubdate: Tue, 10 Nov 2015
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321

MARIJUANA WHACK-A-MOLE

Sky High Collective is open again. This is the medical marijuana 
dispensary where, on May 26, a hidden security camera that went 
unnoticed recorded police officers dismantling surveillance 
equipment, playing darts, making derogatory remarks about an amputee 
bystander and, purportedly, helping themselves to some edible 
marijuana products.

The shop is proving a perpetual black eye for the Santa Ana Police 
Department, as the reopening comes just weeks after the dispensary 
was raided and closed by police. It was the third raid, and the 
fourth enforcement action, in five months.

But Sky High also is proving to be a perpetual reminder that the 
city's tactics in ferreting out illegal medical pot operators remain 
ineffective. But that is the price of a policy that places police 
action ahead of providing legal access.

"If Sky High reopens without a proper business license, it's subject 
to further enforcement," Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, a spokesman for the 
Santa Ana Police Department, told the Register. "They are not one of 
the 20 approved dispensaries."

But then, only three licensed dispensaries have opened in Santa Ana, 
and the city doesn't seem to have a good excuse as to why the pace of 
legalizing dispensaries hasn't kept up with the speed of closing down 
illegal operators.

As we learned from Prohibition, making something illegal doesn't end 
demand for it. Be it alcohol or marijuana, until legally permissible 
options are made available to users, as voters intended in approving 
Measure BB, users will find other ways to obtain them, and the city 
will continue to waste resources on raids.

The odyssey of Sky High Collective confirms the city's current 
policies on pot legalization to be the failure we long suspected. Not 
only is it a waste of taxpayer funds spent on cyclical enforcement, 
but it also harms legal operators struggling to gain a foothold.

In those city-sanctioned operations, not only does the city have a 
tax base  one dispensary paid the city $22,900 in its first month of 
legal operation  but likely a partner in the city's campaign to have 
its marijuana commerce fully legal.

Illegal operators are cutting into the legal business. Imagine the 
revenue 20 legal dispensaries could provide the city.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom