Marijuana Dispensaries Challenge L.A. City On State Medical Pot Law
After throwing up its hands and overturning its own ban on medical marijuana dispensaries last month, the L.A. City Council pleaded with the state legislature to clarify its confusing pot laws.
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L.A.'s Union for Medical Cannabis Patients went ahead and did that for the council.
Of course, you could probably consider the union's legal analysis a little biased on the side of pot-users' rights:
But it's an interesting take, one that will be presented to the public in a press conference at 9:30 this morning outside council chambers:
The council has been guided, in part, by the L.A. City Attorney's office, which has long argued that state law was never meant to allow for-profit sales of weed in a retail environment.
James Shaw, the union's director:
The Council apparently isn't aware that other cities have already successfully implemented local regulation, including West Hollywood, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland, without resulting in excessive litigation. The questions the Council has raised have already largely been answered.
The group's fear appears to be that the council will try to regulate pot shops anew. Two signature-gathering efforts seek to head that off at the pass by creating dispensary friendly regulations in L.A. via the initiative process.
Here's the union's response to the council's Sept. 28 request to the state legislature for legal clarification:
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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