Paperwork problems probably not cause of marijuana dispensary raids
Yesterday, the San Diego City Council actually took up the questions surrounding the burst of new medical marijuana dispensary permits. Though some had already been granted, dozens more wanted to open up shop, and neighborhood residents were starting to complain. The city needed to resolve how to classify dispensaries (are they pharmacies? Alcohol equivalents? Other health care?) and how best to fit them into the zoning scheme. Ambiguity surrounding this type of regulation had led the city to suspend giving out business licenses to dispensaries last week. The City Council decided to re-form its Medical Marijuana Task Force to examine these issues.
But it is unlikely that any of this has anything to do with the raids on dispensaries taking place this afternoon, Rachel Laing, a spokesperson for Mayor Jerry Sanders, told CityBeat today.
“For the city of San Diego, the only concern is, does this use fit into an existing land-use category,” Laing said.
Problems with paperwork of the sort the city is grappling with generally result in misdemeanors for the store operator, she said.
Misdemeanor offenders don’t generally get raided by police officers with guns drawn.
****EVERYBODY*****: WRITE, CALL, EMAIL PRESIDENT OBAMA NOW!!!! IT’S EASY, GO HERE:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
WE WILL NOT HAVE OUR FREEDOMS TAKEN AWAY ANYMORE AND OBAMA CAN FIX THIS EASILY ASAP.
1) ASK HIM TO FIRE ERIC HOLDER FOR NOT FOLLOWING THE PRESIDENTS CAMPAIGN PROMISES AND WASTING MY HARD EARNED TAXES ON RAIDS WITH GUNS ON SICK PEOPLE.
2) ASK HIM WHY FEDERAL FUNDS ARE BEING USED AGAINST HARMLESS PATIENTS.
3) ASK HIM TO HELP BY CALLING SAN DIEGO LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SAN DIEGO DEA NOW!!!
4) ASK HIM TO KEEP THE PROMISES HE MADE.
5) ASK HIM TO HAVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SUE THE SAN DIEGO LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR VIOLATING SEVERAL LAW IN THE RAIDS.
6) COPY PASTE THIS MESSAGE AND POST IT IN EVERY BLOG ABOUT THE INCIDENTS THAT HAVE HAPPENED THIS WEEK.
FINALLY, IF ANYONE IS A LAWYER, SUE THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO. MAKE SAN DIEGO BLEED MONEY IN THE COURTROOM SO IT CAN’T AFFORD TO DO MORE RAIDS.
I HAVE TO GO NOW TO FIND ANOTHER COLLECTIVE.
Tee hee. Guys, the “collectives” that were raided will remain closed. People will be prosecuted, and they will be convicted. Here’s the thing:
The sale of marijuana is illegal under state, federal, and local law. Nobody broke any promises. Drug-dealers will be prosecuted.
If you use marijuana medically….nudge, nudge, wink, wink….Proposition 215 provides you a defense, when you get busted. Or if you are growing of someone, if you are their caregiver, Proposition 215 provides you with a defense if you get busted for possession. But in actual fact, medical users and their caregivers are not busted for possession.
People who opened marijuana stores, to sell to anyone who walks in the door, for a profit…well, those people are operating outside of the law.
Obamadidnotkeep….please do ma a favor. Go online, and find the language in California state law that allows the sale of marijuana. You might also give us an example of the laws you claim are being broken. Or just one, please.
We’ll wait……..
Hmm. I didn’t think so.
Next.
You’re wrong Rob. There was a case where it was ruled that prop 215 and/or sb420 provides more then just a defense in court but as a law to not even be arrested in the first place if the police determine that your paperwork is valid.
Heck, that’s one of the main things that the new county MMJ id card provides is a database that the police can access online immediately at the time of “detention and investigation” and if the database says you’re legit and there are no other illegal factors then the police CANNOT arrest you.
Rob H…..really only has part of the the truth. He really needs to go do some research. Follow the Calif.Attorney Generals guidelines on how to operate a dispensary.
1. Form a Calif Mutual Benefit Corp. which is owned by the Collective members. 2. Don’t open a store front. Use a warehouse industrial location where members can obtain MMJ via donation to keep the collective operating..and guess what…you don’t really need a business license as you are not a retail location. You are a prop 215, SB 420 defined collective. So tee hee hhe Rob.H. The transfer of MMJ by and between the members is LEGAL when organized within the AG Guidelines for the purpose of facilitiating transactions between the members, it IS LEGAL. I dare you Rob H. and the SDPD to raid a collective organized as the AG describes…. your case will fall apart. ESAD Rob H. or did I just rub your face in it?
Paul S is missing the point. Police and prosecutors can and should shut down operations that are not operating as collectives, defined under SB420. The fact that many were shut down does NOT prove that the police are persecuting people. It appears they are profiteers taking advantage of the public’s inclination to be compassionate toward sick people. The DA has said that cooperative and collective operations would NOT be shut down. The details will come out in court. My opinion is that people who think marijuana is fine for all are hiding behind sick people. Patients and caregivers are not being prosecuted. Young, white males who frequent beach area dispensaries in groups are probably really bummed that they cannot get their “medicine.” They don’t have a right under CA law. Community members need to think about their rights to public safety. This marijuana ends up on the streets and in the bodies of people driving cars.
“Community members need to think about their rights to public safety. This marijuana ends up on the streets and in the bodies of people driving cars.”
Oh for heavens sake; so does alcohol; so does anger which then is taken to the freeways in people driving with road rage; this isn’t about public safety – it is about public awareness and stigma of an substance which has gone through much the same growing pains of alcohol (and cigarettes) which went through a period of being ILLEGAL and is now sold all over, everywhere to people 21 and over (BECAUSE IT MAKES THE GOVERNMENT MONEY).
Yes at this moment you must react under the laws of SB420 to be defensible, but what really needs to happen is the whole marijuana issue needs to be sorted out once and for all, faced, the medical issues on the table, the criminal issues on the table, all of it judged much the same as alcohol – - – so it isn’t JUST patients who have to go through some rigmarole hoops to smoke. They have tested the theory of PUBLIC DANGER FROM ALLOWING MARIJUANA SMOKING in Amsterdam and the country hasn’t ended upside down, with huge increases of crime or other negative public consequence (people driving under the influence causing damage to the rest of the public). I’d rather have someone driving next to me under the influence of MJ than alcohol ANY TIME. I’d rather have them chill then on a rage binge out driving as well.
This is just dotting i’s and crossing t’s on the laws as they are; the point is this has been going on for centuries; there is a large portion of adult responsible population who smoke MJ and have children, assets, professional jobs. They just can’t come out and advocate because the govm’t keeps making MJ some kind of deadly sin. That’ll pass.
Until then? this just cost us all bunches of tax money San Diego keeps saying they don’t have (both to do the raids; prosecute and put ‘criminals’ in prison AND loss of tax revenue). You have to ask yourself… in the counties in CA where people do not have such a conservative stance, they have seen an increase in TAX REVENUE from the co-ops – and if they were seeing an increase in criminal activity, problems, complaints, they’d be doing something about it. They aren’t because they don’t.
It is an orderly way to keep everyone happy but San Diego just cannot seem to get out of the ice age and keeps pushing the age old agenda that marijuana is something that should be kept from the general public.
Proving it was a good thing for medical patients was only the first step. You know who those patients are? People that have insomnia (huh. that’s about 70% of our over worked and under cared for populace). People that have hyper tension (again, huge numbers because of our government’s complete lack of concern over our welfare as evidenced by the food laws they pass, the air quality they allow etc etc while they instead focus on this piddly shit). People smoke for the same reason that YOU have a cocktail or beer…. to mellow out from our crazy over-wound cultural existence.
This is just a blip – activists will continue to push the envelope because THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE WANT. And there will be some that stick their neck out and become visible and they’ll be clipped….. but the entire movement will continue to move forward. Because we live in a democracy and we have the ability to VOTE for those who will take care of our well being. At least that’s something to dream about……..
IN MY HUMBLE OPINION
……. Nuff said.
Thank you constantly agitated, for your well put message. I needed to end on something positive to let my blood pressure return to norml. I’m so sick and tired of these idiots who think they know the facts, when all they do is spew the government b.s. that has been proven to be lies many times over. And I want to know something; if it’s illegal to make a profit from the sick, then how is it that pharmacuetical companies post Billions in profit every year, with 1,000′s of people dead, and terrible side effects from their products. I don’t see these idiot people complaining about that. So what about it Rob H.? Huh, you got no problem with people dying and getting sicker from something as long as your precious government tells you it’s okay? Are you that f’n stupid? Tee hee, dickface!
John Said: “And I want to know something; if it’s illegal to make a profit from the sick, then how is it that pharmacuetical companies post Billions in profit every year, with 1,000’s of people dead, and terrible side effects from their products. I don’t see these idiot people complaining about that”
So don’t worry — these idiots are the same ones who’ll be sticking their arms out for the swine flu vaccine in a few months because they want so bad to believe that our ‘government’ is really there to help us.. maybe it’ll clear some of them out. HAHAHA the reason marijuana isn’t supposed to be profitable is because big pharma hasn’t figured out how to GROW it yet!
All they can do is combine UNnatural chemicals and then send the recipe to China or India to make their pills for them — then cross their fingers that the $$ they have in the victims fund covers the people that get sick or die from THEIR recipes, which happens, like you said, by the thousands. Whoops too bad little johnnie.
There is no condition linked to smoking marijuana; despite everyone saying oh oh it’s smoking, smoking is bad for you – there are no cases of lung cancer or emphysema that have been linked directly to MJ smoking in the past 4 decades. This ALL has to do with government intervention on behalf of big Pharma… and they are butting heads with the WILL OF THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA.
I note that when scientific evidence is laid out here, there are no rebuttals. That’s because there aren’t any. Those people like to come in and shake their fist, yell pot heads, then go back to smoking a parliment, drinking a 6-pack and hoping that they’re right about someone out there really giving a shit about them enough to ‘take care of them’. Haha. As if. As if that’s what all those laws are out there for – to protect and serve. haha. It’s ALWAYS about politics and that’s ALWAYS about money. They make $$, we can’t. We pay tax, they spend it. See how easy that was? The entire system laid out before you.