Tough New LA Medical Pot Rules Poised to Backfire
January 31, 2010, 5:42 pm
Posted: January 26, 2010 04:15 PM
As politicians fumble for a way to clamp down on, snuff out or otherwise
curtail the use of medical marijuana, the one thing that they have
failed to consider is that the tougher the regulations they may pass,
the more likely they are to spectacularly backfire. As a breed,
politicians seem genetically incapable of spotting trends, and the trend
in medical marijuana goes far beyond how many dispensaries the market
can bear. The ball is slowly rolling toward full legalization, and every
scheme to limit access to medical marijuana only adds to the momentum.
It might sound counterintuitive, but there is no one more motivated than
a dope smoker when it comes to matters concerning cannabis, especially
one with an entrepreneurial wind at her back. Politicians' knee-jerk
reaction to a tidal change in constituents' attitudes toward marijuana
has set fire to an entire category of people who are usually content to
sit on the sofa watching Man vs. Wild reruns.
In Los Angeles, for example, there were four dispensaries in 2005. The
moment the City Council started talking about restricting such
businesses, the number climbed quickly to nearly 200, and when a ban on
new dispensaries was announced in 2007, pot proponents lined up to file
paperwork to beat the deadline. Today, there are between 800 and 1,000
dispensaries in LA, including applications for 58 businesses on one
street. Backfire.
As it did elsewhere, the same thing happened in Fort Collins. There were
three or four dispensaries late last year before the City Council
decided to put a three-month halt on new ones so they could discuss how
and if they should try to prevent their wild proliferation.
The weeks before the moratorium went into effect saw an avalanche of
sales tax licenses so new dispensaries could wildly proliferate before
the door slammed shut. There are now more than 100 dispensaries in Fort
Collins that are either open for business or preparing to open.
Backfire.
Back in LA, the City Council passed a new ordinance Tuesday (LA Times
report) that limits the total number of pot clinics to about 150,
forcing hundreds to go out of business.
Those allowed to remain open will be spread around the city based on a
districting scheme and they would have to be 1,000 feet away from parks,
schools, churches and other "sensitive areas."
This could backfire in two ways: Owners could ignore the ordinance and
dare the cash-strapped city to spend the resources shutting them down,
or they could seek an injunction preventing the city from enforcing it.
Either option would be an expensive and ultimately pointless wrangle.
Even if the law were perfectly enforced, it would do nothing to reduce
the amount of marijuana in a community like Venice, for example, where
out of the 17 existing dispensaries only one would be allowed to remain.
No matter what the commodity, when you artificially reduce the legal
supply, costs go up and black markets flourish.
More significantly, the ordinance could backfire in the form of a
landslide vote for legalization if a citizen-initiated measure is put on
the California ballot in November, as expected. Clueless politicians
restricting access to voter-approved medical marijuana would be a strong
rallying cry to get out the vote.
By Greg Campbell
Award-winning journalist and author
Colorado would be wise to keep such things in mind as it grapples with
its own hodgepodge of regulatory ideas. Tomorrow, a bill that would
tighten the screws on doctors making medical marijuana recommendations
will be heard in committee. This is the first of at least two bills that
are expected to be debated at the capitol, and it's at least less
onerous than the other, which may seek to cap the number of patients a
dispensary could serve to five. That would effectively shut down all but
the smallest dispensaries and, if passed, very likely provide the
tipping point for our very own citizen-initiated legalization measure.
Victory for the cannabis crowd would be far from assured, but national
polls have consistently shown overwhelming support for medical
marijuana, and increasing support for full legalization. Many polls show
a slim majority in favor of making pot legal across the board. By
bullheadedly refusing to allow the industry to follow its free market
evolutionary path, lawmakers are increasingly seen to be erecting
barriers between patients and a drug that as many as 80 percent of
respondents to a recent ABC poll believe should be legal. It may not be
long before voters circumvent the lawmakers at the ballot box and remove
all restrictions.
Follow Greg Campbell on Twitter: www.twitter. com/greg_ campbell
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Greg Campbell is an award-winning journalist and author who has written
for such publications s The Economist, WSJ Magazine and Paris Match.