The marijuana collectives in Los Angeles are the antithesis of those jokes. We are a part of the medical community and we are legitimate businesses. There is a lot of misinformation about exactly what a patient collective is. A patient collective is a legitimate office where a patient visits after receiving a recommendation that medical marijuana can help his condition. It is our mission to help establish patient collectives in Los Angeles as a legitimate industry.
The LACA was formed to deal with the city of Los Angeles illegally trying to extend a moratorium on collectives beyond the two-year limit of the interim control ordinance. It filed a lawsuit to end the moratorium and, after winning a preliminary injunction against the city, we prevented it from enforcing the moratorium.
Currently, we find ourselves facing a City Council determined to discriminate against our members and create unacceptable ordinances that would drastically decrease the number of collectives. If it continues to discriminate against the majority of the collectives, we will challenge the city again in court.
It has become clear that the City Council will continue to treat us unfairly and with disdain. It seems not to have a clear understanding of the industry. Most council members have not entered a collective and those who have, have a limited understanding of how a collective operates.
They receive wrong information from the city attorneys as to what is legal. The city attorney ignores the guidelines set by the state attorney general in response to Proposition 215, the Medical Marijuana Act passed by voters in 1996.
We find that our best recourse is to continue to challenge the city in court, to turn to the voters of Los Angeles and to create our own referendum.
LACA has four goals:
— To represent patients by helping them to form and operate a collective, using whatever model they choose, be it a dispensary, a collective cultivation, religious congregation, elder-care collective, an assisted medicating lounge or delivery service.
— To help develop acceptable practices for running collectives.
— To stand up for patients’ rights. We believe they have the freedom to form collectives in ways that best serve their members. There will be no master list of patients; there will be no limits on the number of collectives to which a patient can belong; there will be no limits on the number of outlets of a particular collective; patients can trade or share their medicine with other patients or groups of patients (collectives); and LACA believes we have the freedom to create collectives in any manner that best serves our patients.
— To steer the industry in a compassionate direction.
— Dan Lutz is president of the Los Angeles Collective Association.
Source: Ventura County Star
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