Opinion: State legislation threatens cannabis dispensaries
By Steve Kubby
A new law and court decision are about to wreak havoc upon nearly all medical cannabis dispensaries or MCDs in California. Unfortunately for the MCDs, they are about to face legal challenges they cannot win.
Worst of all, there is nothing under state law to protect MCDs at this point and it seems only a matter of time before most MCDs are forced to close.
Steve Kubby
The new law, AB1300, signed last month by Gov. Jerry Brown, clearly gives cities the right to ban the “… establishment of a medical marijuana cooperative or collective.”
Even worse, it authorizes local jurisdictions to enact new criminal penalties against MCDs and patient collectives.
Legal expert William McPike, who has won over 150 medical marijuana cases and represents a large number of MCDs, is advising his clients that 80 percent of MCDs statewide will face closure.
Lanny Swerdlow, a registered nurse, MCD expert and a well known activist, is even more pessimistic: “Come Jan. 1 with the new right under AB1300 to criminalize code violations and the expected opinion by the 4th District Court that cities can ban collectives under their zoning ordinances, we will see 99 percent of the collectives closed long before November 2012,” he predicted.
John D. Higginbotham, a Southern California attorney for the law firm of Best Best & Krieger, believes MCDs are about to become history. “The era of storefront retail marijuana businesses is nearing an end, at least in the cities we represent,” he said. “The wheels of justice sometimes grind slowly, but you can only flaunt the law for so long before it catches up with you.”
Steve Kubby is CEO of Strategic Campaigns LLC and currently serves as chief officer and campaign chairman for a new California voter initiative to Regulate Marijuana Like Wine.
We have ‘way too many of these MCDs. Marijuana isn’t the wonder drug cure-all that would justify so many of them open.
Unfortunately, many MCDs have brought this curse upon themselves by creating “non profit” corporations, but operating those shells for personal profit, instead of as true collectives.
Good. Now people can go back to alcohol. A drug with a perfect safety record and no side effects. OK, maybe just a few like murder, car crashes, wife beating, fights, and did I forget to mention just a couple of minor medical problems like cirrhosis, pancreatitis, and hallucinations.
So, is all the time the city spent on this issue for naught? Is it likely the topic will be reopened and the city ordinance changed next year?
Re-schedule cannabis!
Go to the whitehouse website, sign a petition.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/it-least-dangerous-drug-known-man-push-re-schedule-cannabis-schedule-i-down-schedule-iv-or-v/mgnVvBFg
This court decision spells doom for MCDs. Although it is a tentative decision, only two weeks old, our attorneys have studied the case and cannot see any way to reverse this decision, at least until our initiative passes and forbids local bans. http://dispensary-business-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/THC-CourtAppealTENTATIVEopinion1.pdf
For once I agree with Steve Kubby. I truthfully believe that marijuana should again be legalized as it was many, many years ago and then controlled and taxed in the same manner as alcohol. The template for this process has already been established with the ABC and the taxes collected would be beneficial to every level of government.
I highly recommend viewing the new Ken Burns programming on PBS entitled “Prohibition” for a revealing insight into that attempt of prohibiting people from using a substance that they wanted along with the economic and organized crime impacts associated with an action foisted on the Country by religious extremists.
I also agree with Turnip Truck regarding the greater societal destruction of alcohol than of marijuana. FYI, attitudes toward marijuana had started to relax in the 1970’s but thanks to Ronald Reagan and his religious bent that all changed when he served as Governor of CA, then he took his show national. Too bad.
“laws can’t stop a culutre!”
culture………..!kick me ! I’m us to it!
The free for all may be over. Anyone with a permit to grow should also have a resale number and pay tax on whatever is exchanged at collectives.
Registering with any government is a massive risk. Eventually there will be another ‘Drug Czar’ that coddles the anti drug crusaders (be it the ‘family values’ types or the corporate interests). And the Feds will just pick the low hanging fruit. Remember ‘Operation Pipe Dreams’? They ‘made an example’ out of people who sold pipes…. and actually thought they made a difference. And then the meth plague started. ‘I don’t like it, therefore you can’t do it’.
As for rescheduling marijuana (a real solution) that was just recently considered, and all medical evidence was ignored. It does work as medicine, whether you like it or not.
Something with a lot of powerful doesn’t want pot smokers, a new medicine, or in under the influence of financial special interests. Or it is just another mechanism of social control, sticking it to a counter culture that doesn’t fall in line.
We live in a place where the culture is more lenient and rational… look at the draconian policies in middle america. They are holding us back. Again.
and here come the feds.
What a waste of resources. Legalize it, tax it, regulate it.