Patients can expect changes as the city presses ahead with historic yet unworkable regulations, but dispensaries promise to fight on

Jacqueline
“Jacky” McGowan was in the Dominican Republic when the mania started. “I had a
severe manic episode and thought I was going to end up in a psych ward,” she
said. Already on anti-seizure medication for bi-polar disorder, 39-year-old
McGowan flew home to the Bay Area, and “went through all types of medications
that caused me to black out and hallucinate.” 

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Destined
for a mental institution, she said, Jacky’s parents asked her to check out Dr.
Sanjay Gupta’s CNN specials on medical cannabis for neurological issues. She
experimented with high-CBD tincture, and has been pharmaceutical-free and
healthy for 10 months. “This saved my life,” McGowan said. “I don’t do drugs. I
don’t smoke pot. I don’t even drink alcohol.” So Jacky is protesting in front
of San Jose City Hall with thousands of others whose medications are threatened
by the city’s draconian new medical cannabis ordinance.

Having
taken effect on July 18, San Jose’s new rules deem the city’s roughly 85
dispensaries illegal. Reports indicate 27 must close immediately. All but a
half-dozen must move to comply with San Jose’s extremely restrictive new
zoning, said James Anthony, a Bay Area attorney and dispensary specialist.

Even
if clubs find a new spot, 65 pages of rules and regulations ensure almost no
club will be getting a permit from the city anytime soon.

San
Jose is ordering clubs to grow all their own stock in massive warehouses, which
have been fat targets for federal enforcement in the past. A patient’s medical
records are no longer private in city limits, the new rules state. And anyone
under 21 is not allowed on dispensary property—not a cancer patient or a
budtender. “This by no means is responsible regulations,” said Doug Chloupek, Co-founder
and CEO of MedMar Healing Center—which faces the possibility of closure due to
the zoning rules.

As
of CULTURE’s press time, the Silicon
Valley Cannabis Coalition was waging a desperate, last-minute campaign to
obtain roughly 70,000 valid signatures from San Jose voters. Such a petition
would trigger a citywide vote to delete the worst parts of the new law. Other
operators are looking into separate legal challenges.

Patients
looking for relief through statewide regulations will find little to like.
Current versions of draft medical cannabis legislation reinforce local
ordinances. Instead, many are pinning their hopes on full adult legalization in
2016. San Jose’s impasse might not be resolved by then. Most warning letters
won’t got out to dispensaries until the end of October, and clubs have a year
to move to a valid location. But operators say those locations don’t exist.

Roughly
600 parcels in the entire city qualify under the new zoning, Anthony said.
Those lucky landlords won’t lease to tenants threatened with seizure by the
federal government, said Chloupek. And landlords won’t sell the property for
less than three or four times market value, said Anthony.

The
situation promises to resemble Los Angeles, where voter-approved Measure D in
2013 called for just 135 clubs. Hundreds more still operate, in addition to
delivery services. Both cities collect millions of dollars in taxes from all
medical cannabis sales, while simultaneously playing whack-a-mole with illegal
dispensaries. “I suspect parts of San Jose, just like Los Angles, will muddle
along,” Anthony said. “But for better or worse, this is a new era for San
Jose.”