THE STATE
Conflicting court rulings leave activists baffled
Cannabis activists were left scratching their heads in October after the justice system handed down two seemingly contradictory rulings on medical marijuana ordinances—one declaring a city has the right to regulate dispensaries, the other holding that such regulations violate federal law.
Muddying the waters even further was that both rulings were promptly hailed by anti-medical cannabis forces as huge victories for their side.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anthony Mohr ruled Oct. 14 that L.A. city officials were perfectly within their rights when they passed a sweeping medical cannabis ordinance in January. Mohr held the ordinance conformed to all legal requirements, and that pot dispensaries have no vested rights to continue operating. His ruling effectively ended 29 lawsuits brought against the city by dispensary operators seeking to block enforcement of the ordinance.
Less than two weeks earlier, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles had ruled that Long Beach’s medical marijuana ordinance violated U.S. law because it would have allowed the city to authorize the use of a federally controlled substance. Long Beach’s ordinance would have used a lottery system to determine which cannabis shops could remain open in the city.
Judge Mohr apparently did not consider the earlier ruling when weighing his decision, the Los Angeles Times reported. Attorneys for both Los Angeles and Long Beach city halls declared the respective rulings helped to clear the air on the subject of local dispensary regulations.
California Medical Association calls for legalization and regulation
The California Medical Association (CMA)—which represents more than 35,000 doctors across the state—recently came out to urge for the legalization and regulation of cannabis. “CMA may be the first organization of its kind to take this position, but we won’t be the last,” read a news release on the association’s website. “The regulation of medical cannabis will allow for wider clinical research, accountable and quality-controlled production of the substance and proper public awareness . . . CMA also recommends the regulation of recreational cannabis so that states may regulate this more widely used cannabis for purity and safety.”
The association also called for cannabis to be regulated similar to alcohol and tobacco. This is believed to be the first time a major medical association has urged for legalization.
Angry activists descend on Lake Forest City Hall
Enraged over a long series of municipal attacks on dispensaries, more than 100 medical cannabis proponents staged a boisterous protest in front of the Lake Forest City Hall before entering the building and berating city leaders holding their weekly council meeting.
The protest, staged by the Orange County chapters of NORML and Americans for Safe Access, was aimed at both raising public awareness of the council’s anti-dispensary stance and showing the council that their actions have political consequences, the groups stated. Several newspapers and television news stations had reporters and cameras on hand to cover the event.
Few Orange County cities have taken as harsh an approach to medical cannabis dispensaries as Lake Forest. Acting on a municipal ban on the shops, local police have joined in federal raids of dispensaries, while lawyers for the city sued local collectives—at a cost to taxpayers of about $600,000—to shut them down. All but four dispensaries in Lake Forest have closed their doors under pressure.
It is widely believed that the recently announced federal crackdown on dispensaries in California was due in part to requests by Lake Forest officials for federal assistance.
Bearing signs with such messages as “Stop Arresting Patients” and “How Can a Plant Be a Crime,” protesters demonstrated outside City Hall for nearly an hour before entering the council chambers. More than a dozen pro-medical cannabis speakers took turns expressing their outrage to the council members, with one—a local mom and cannabis patient—saying, “It is my choice to be healthy my way, and I feel like you’re taking away that freedom.”
THE NATION
Montana AG livid over gun ban for cannabis patients
Medical cannabis patients in Montana found an unlikely ally in one of their many struggles with the federal government: state Atty. Gen. Steve Bullock.
Bullock penned a letter in October to U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, blasting a recent memo by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stating that marijuana patients cannot own firearms. Such a ban would not only challenge the 2nd Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms, he wrote, but might also violate the 5th Amendment’s promises of equal protection and due process.
“In addition, the [ATF] letter raises serious policy and practical concerns,” Bullock wrote, noting that qualified medical cannabis patients have written recommendations from their physicians to use the drug.
He also pointed out that the right to possess firearms is also guaranteed in the Constitution of the State of Montana, and that more than 29 percent of Americans live in states and districts with medical marijuana laws on the books. It is not known whether Holder responded to Bullock’s letter.
In September, Bullock, a Democrat, announced his candidacy for Montana governor.
THE WORLD
Netherlands goes right; cannabis freedoms go south
Electoral gains by right-wing political parties in the Netherlands last year has translated this year to a major scaling back of marijuana freedoms in the European nation.
In an effort spearhead by the rightist Christian Democrats, the country’s coalition government in October began the process of reclassifying cannabis with a greater-than-15-percent THC potency as a “hard drug” carrying the same criminal penalties as heroin and cocaine. A commission composed of government appointees had earlier this year declared that consuming strong marijuana carried the risk of physical addiction and psychotic episodes.
About 75 percent of the marijuana sold in the Netherlands is grown within the country, helping to explain the significant opposition by Dutch farmers to the new law.
The reclassification move came on the heels of the passage of a law preventing all foreign tourists except Germans and Belgians from entering the celebrated Dutch “coffeeshops” where cannabis is sold and consumed. Customers will now have to show a photo ID to prove their nationality when entering a shop, where they must register as members.
The coffeeshop trade in Amsterdam alone had helped attract some 3.5 million tourists last year, with the city’s cannabis trade generating some 4.9 million Euros. Critics have called the “no-foreigners” rule “tourism suicide,” warning that the potential loss of tourism dollars could help push the Netherlands back into the recession from which it just emerged.
