NEWS: Medical marijuana clinics banned in La Crescenta

LA CRESCENTA — Medical marijuana clinics looking to open in La Crescenta will have to look elsewhere after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday banned the dispensaries in unincorporated areas of the county.

Supervisors had directed county planners in July to prepare an ordinance banning all medical marijuana dispensaries from setting up shop in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich has pushed for the ban, which he said would help keep dispensaries from relocating to unincorporated communities in Los Angeles, where the City Council passed a series of tightened restrictions.

The county had already placed strict restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries, but officials pointed to the proliferation of shops operating illegally as proof of the need for more regulation.

On Tuesday, the board voted 4 to 1 to approve the ban, with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky voting in opposition.

"A complete ban is not going to achieve the objectives that all of us want to achieve with some of these out-of-control illegal dispensaries that have popped up in unincorporated areas," he said. "It's the illegal ones that don't come in for permits that are creating a lot of the problems."

In response to a separate motion from Yaroslavsky, the board voted unanimously to direct county officials to take aggressive action against illegal clinics, including levying a fine of $1,000 per day.

In Glendale, city officials have held off on establishing regulations for the dispensaries, instead enacting a moratorium to give city attorneys more time to analyze the complicated, ever-changing legal landscape.

The county's new ban includes a provision that allows for a return to existing regulations if the California Supreme Court rules that outright bans are unconstitutional.

Howard Hakes, president of the Crescenta Valley Drug and Alcohol Prevention Coalition, said he was glad to hear of the ban, citing stories of recreational users easily attaining medical marijuana prescriptions.

"It's closing another loophole where the drugs were coming from," he said. "I think it's great the supervisors saw that."

Crescenta Valley Town Council President Cheryl Davis said most residents she's spoken with support a ban.

"They want the ban because they feel that if there is a need to get medical marijuana there are legal dispensaries near us," she said.

At Tuesday's meeting, many dispensary operators and medical marijuana patients spoke out against the ban, which they said would provide unnecessary hardship for legal users.

"If you ban, it would take people such as myself out of the loop of providing medicines for chronically ill patients," said Sue Taylor, president of the nonprofit cooperative ICann Health Center. "The ban would do nothing for these pot shops — unregulated clubs that are showing up everywhere."

Source: Glendale News-Press

NEWS: Downey wary of medical marijuana clinics

DOWNEY – Downey moved closer to prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries from operating in the city when the Planning Commission on Wednesday agreed with city administrators that the benefits of marijuana collectives to residents are “far outweighed” by the violent crime that oftentimes besiege the clinics.

The Commission unanimously approved a resolution that formally recommends the City Council bar the dispensaries from operating in the city.

The City Council, which enacted a moratorium on medical marijuana collectives late last year, is expected to hold a public hearing on the issue in the coming weeks. The moratorium is scheduled to expire Nov. 10.

“There is a small minority of residents who may enjoy the benefits [of a medical marijuana dispensary], but the adverse effects far outweigh the benefits,” said planning commissioner Robert Kiefer, before the body voted 5-0 for recommendation against the dispensaries.

California voters approved the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes in 1996. The state created a voluntary medical marijuana identification card program in 2003 to protect residents from state marijuana laws.

Still, commissioner Fernando Vasquez said the city “has a responsibility to our youth to guide them in the right direction.” And commissioners Mike Murray and Louis Morales both expressed concern over “lack of regulatory control” and the distribution of medical marijuana.

Commissioner Terry Lambrose did not offer an opinion but said “I’m sure the City Council will think this over and come to the right decision.”

One Downey resident spoke Wednesday in favor of marijuana collectives. He urged the commission to consider the health benefits chronically-ill patients have reported from smoking marijuana. He also dismissed the reports of crime at dispensaries.

“How many liquor stores have been robbed?” the man, an admitted marijuana user, said. “The word is ‘compassion.’ Downey will be known as a city that doesn’t care. It’s all about our human right to dignity.”

In issuing a recommendation against marijuana dispensaries, city administrators cited federal law that still makes it illegal to grow, use or possess marijuana.

A staff report prepared by community development director Brian Saeki and senior planner David Blumenthal was thick with examples of violent crime at pot dispensaries. The report included newspaper clippings detailing robberies and homicides at dispensaries in neighboring cities.

“Besides crimes against persons and property, the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries has been linked to organized criminal activity, money laundering and firearm violations,” the report states.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in June that of California’s 481 incorporated cities, 132 have banned such dispensaries. Another 101 have enacted temporary moratoriums.

Best, Best & Krieger, before they were fired as the city’s law firm, wrote a white paper suggesting Downey had the discretion to either regulate or prohibit medical marijuana clinics. The law firm also warned the city against “adverse secondary impacts” dispensaries could pose.

“On balance, any utility to medical marijuana patients in care giving and convenience that marijuana dispensaries may appear to have on the surface is enormously outweighed by a much darker reality that is punctuated by the many adverse secondary effects created by their presence in communities,” Best, Best & Krieger wrote. “These drug distribution centers have even proven to be unsafe for their own proprietors.”

The city of Los Angeles recently approved a restrictive ordinance aimed at corralling the city’s estimated 400 medical marijuana dispensaries. Attorneys representing marijuana dispensaries that were given closure notices have said they will sue Los Angeles.

Only one medical marijuana dispensary has operated legally in Downey. It closed after the city's moratorium went into effect late last year.

Source: The Downey Patriot

NEWS: Medical marijuana to be OK in some VA clinics

WASHINGTON — Patients treated at Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics will be able to use medical marijuana in the 14 states where it's legal, according to new federal guidelines.

The directive from the Veterans Affairs Department in the coming week is intended to clarify current policy that says veterans can be denied pain medication if they use illegal drugs. Veterans groups have complained for years that this could bar veterans from VA benefits if they were caught using medical marijuana.

The new guidance does not authorize VA doctors to begin prescribing medical marijuana, which is considered an illegal drug under federal law. But it will now make clear that in the 14 states where state and federal law are in conflict, VA clinics generally will allow the use of medical marijuana for veterans already taking it under other clinicians.

"For years, there have been veterans coming back from the Iraq war who needed medical marijuana and had to decide whether they were willing to cut down on their VA medications," John Targowski, a legal adviser to the group Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, which worked with the VA on the issue.

Targowski in an interview Saturday said that confusion over the government's policy might have led some veterans to distrust their doctors or avoid the VA system.

Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the VA's undersecretary for health, sent a letter to Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access this month that spells out the department's policy. The guidelines will be distributed to the VA's 900 care facilities around the country in the next week.

Petzel makes clear that a VA doctor could reserve the right to modify a veteran's treatment plan if there were risks of a bad interaction with other drugs.

"If a veteran obtains and uses medical marijuana in a manner consistent with state law, testing positive for marijuana would not preclude the veteran from receiving opioids for pain management" in a VA facility, Petzel wrote. "The discretion to prescribe, or not prescribe, opioids in conjunction with medical marijuana, should be determined on clinical grounds."

Opioids are narcotic painkillers, and include morphine, oxycodone and methadone.

Under the previous policy, local VA clinics in some of the 14 states, such as Michigan, had opted to allow the use of medical marijuana because there no rule explicitly prohibiting them from doing so.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are 14 states and the District of Columbia with medical marijuana laws. They are: Alaska, California , Colorado, Hawaii , Maine, Maryland , Michigan, Montana , Nevada , New Mexico, Oregon , Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. New Jersey also recently passed a medical marijuana law, which is scheduled to be implemented next January.

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune