LOS ANGELES -- Five years ago, the Los Angeles City Council thought it had reined in an explosion of pot businesses across this sprawling metropolis with a moratorium against new medical marijuana dispensaries.
Now L.A., with 762 documented dispensaries and scores more thought to be operating under the radar, has approved an outright ban on storefront marijuana providers. The city also enacted a controversial plan for medical marijuana users to grow their own pot.
But many question whether Los Angeles -- where Snoop Dogg blazes a fatty joint in ads for "free bong hits" at Hollywood's KushMart and City Compassionate Caregivers near downtown invites patrons to "medicate" in its 3-7 p.m. "happy hour" -- has finally figured out how to control its marijuana landscape.
While hundreds of dispensaries have closed elsewhere in California amid local crackdowns, federal raids and threats of prosecution, the City of Angels flutters in an alternative cannabis universe.
Los Angeles has become the morality play for medical marijuana and a failure of city regulation. It has lost key court rulings in favor of dispensaries and in some cases failed to enforce local standards that withstood legal challenges.
After its ineffectual 2007 moratorium, the city in 2010 passed a medical marijuana ordinance setting a limit of 186 dispensaries. Scores of stores shuttered, and the city threatened legal actions against 450 others that refused to close. But then a judge's order froze the ordinance. And another city effort to stem pot operations -- holding a lottery to set a limit of 100 dispensaries -- drew a slew of lawsuits.
Even as Los Angeles won in court -- such as a 2011 ruling affirming the city's right to restrict dispensaries -- it failed to stop new pot clubs from opening, often with retail licenses not specifying that they sold.
Los Angeles was one of the last major cities in California to try to tackle the spread of cannabis outlets, which now flourish in much of the city. As many as 250 dispensaries sprouted on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. Pot leaf signs greet traffic on Melrose Avenue near Hollywood.
Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents Rodriguez's East Los Angeles district, led the move for the dispensary ban. He argued the city had dithered too long, creating an intractable challenge.
"If we wait any longer" to close stores en masse "we will continue to chase our tail," Huizar said.
The City Council voted 14-0 last month to ban dispensaries and use some of the $2.5 million the city has collected in voter-approved medical marijuana taxes to mail closure orders to cannabis clubs and pursue legal actions to shutter them.
Advocates say there are hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana users within the Los Angeles city limits. Under the ban, they can cultivate or share cannabis in groups of three or fewer people. The city plan will let hospices, home health care agencies and primary caregivers provide marijuana to sick people who have a doctor's recommendation. It's not clear who would grow that marijuana.
Councilman Dennis Zine, who championed the city's 2010 dispensary ordinance, wonders whether Los Angeles can succeed in its latest attempt to rein in its teeming cannabis industry.
"Whichever way we go," Zine said, "there will be another cycle of lawsuits."
The city's latest efforts come amid continuing confusion over the rights of local governments and marijuana providers. While medical marijuana has been legal in the state since 1996, state legislators have provided only vague guidelines on how it can be distributed.
The state Supreme Court is reviewing four cases involving conflicting local ordinances in cities that have sought to license or ban dispensaries.
Meanwhile, California's four U.S. attorneys charge that marijuana outlets are profiteering in violation of both federal and state laws. In counties across the state, including Sacramento, U.S. authorities have raided dispensaries or scared hundreds out of existence with letters threatening landlords with prosecution.
Contact reporter Peter Hecht at phecht@sacbee.com.
hillstreet posted at 9:15 am on Fri, Aug 10, 2012.
"Dispensaries" are out of control and the whole thing has turned into just another avenue for potheads to get their dope??? Shocking, who could have ever seen that coming! Do a google search for MJ and ripoffs and homicides in Ca. and you'll get an idea what is coming to AZ, just because some potheads want easy access to dope.
American Socialist posted at 11:15 am on Fri, Aug 10, 2012.
Lies Lies Lies....
Also, mind your own business please. I'm not telling you how to live your life. Dont expect that others should have to play by your rules. This is America, land of the free. If you dont like it you're more than welcome to leave.
We the people voted, we the people asked for MMJ.
You do realize that if they dont get it from a local source, they will be buying cartell smoke....Yes?
JimStamm posted at 12:21 pm on Fri, Aug 10, 2012.
hillstreet U don't understand that prohibition causes all this unnecessary violence? Learn from history prohibition didnt work and had the same effect the first time around. It sure hasnt worked this time either. Our politicians have sold us down the river.
What the city officials are doing in LA is a disgrace. The dopists need to be recalled for violating the wil of the people or voted out of office. (dopists and dopism is like racists and racism only the hate is directed at stoners.) Hopefully the next election or two will install people who respect the will of the people rather than looking for weaselly ways to circumvent the will of the people. If these politicians were not corrupt they would put the issue on a referendum ballot.
Cannabis was listed in the US Pharmacopeia from 1985 until 1942, 5 years after prohibition began. It took Harry 5 years to get it removed because the AMA was opposed to cannabis prohibition. In fact Cannabis has been used as good, safe and effective medicine in every major culture since the beginning of recorded history. cannabis is one to the 50 basic herbs of chinese medicine. There are numerous scientific studies showing that cannabis is a safe and effective medicine. These people are being willfully ignorant of history and science.
Cannabis prohibition has been a scam from day one. The scammers are riding a gravy train of at least 40 billion dollars per year of tax payers money. Prohibition was wrought from blatant racism, fraud and corruption & monopolistic business practices by Sec Of the Treasury Andrew Mellon and his soon to be unemployed alcohol prohibitionist nephew, Harry Anslinger. Andrew nepoticly set Harry up in a life long position as the head of the newly created Bureau of Narcotics. They did this when they realized alcohol prohibition was not going to last. They pandered to monopolistic business interests, The Duponts, the synthetic fiber, plastic and cotton industries, the Hearsts and paper pulp industry, the Rockafellers and the fossil fuel industry. They used blatant racism and fraud to obtain their goal of marijuana prohibition. How sleazy is that and who in their right mind would support or condone it?