City Council to vote on Medical Marijuana on Wednesday

January 12, 2010 at 9:35 am in Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Rants

Yes, the City Council is STILL (I won’t say “hashing out”) working on the Medical Marijuana ordinance, and there’s an important vote tomorrow.

If you care about making a good law that supports the good dispensaries and gets rid of the creepy drug fronts, how about checking out the sample letter you can send, and the list of all the Council contact info? It’s right here after the jump.

Here’s the letter:

Date XXX

The Honorable (XXXX XXXXX)

Los Angeles City Council

200 N. Spring St. Room (XXXXXXX)

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear Councilmember (XXXXX),

Congratulations for your hard work towards bringing intelligent regulation to medical marijuana in Los Angeles.

There are three issues remaining in the draft regulations that need to be addressed in Wednesday’s City Council meeting. I hope that you’ll sponsor the necessary amendments to fix these issues.

1.) Amend the draft to guarantee that the existing nonprofit pre-ICO collectives are allowed to relocate within their planning districts, provided that they have not been cited for nuisance violations and pass all of the city’s new regulatory tests, e.g., background checks. We need to weed out the bad apples and the profiteers.

2.) Eliminate the pesticide testing provisions, since compliance is impossible. There are no EPA pesticide tolerance limits established for medical marijuana, therefore there is no way to test medical marijuana as required in the draft regulations. Amend the draft to require that all medical marijuana cultivated by LA collectives be produced using nontoxic methods and that violation of this provision will result in the permanent revocation of the offending collective’s operating permit. Seriously-ill patients need clean medical marijuana.

3.) Do not ban legal forms of concentrated medical marijuana. The California Attorney General’s office issued a very clear statement (03-411, dated 10-21-03) that concentrated cannabis preparations are completely legal under Prop 215. Quote… “Concentrated cannabis or hashish is included within the meaning of “marijuana” as that term is used in the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.” The State courts have subsequently ruled that the only prohibited forms of concentrated marijuana are those produced by solvent extraction. Solvent-derived concentrates of marijuana are dangerous and should be outlawed, but water-based medical marijuana extractions are safe and many seriously ill patients rely on these concentrates in edible form. Amend the draft to ban the manufacture and provision of solvent-extracted medical marijuana concentrates. Get dirty concentrates out of Los Angeles collectives.

If these three issues are addressed, Los Angeles will have the best medical regulations in California, regulations that protect our neighborhoods and the rights of seriously-ill patients. Thanks for your help!

Respectfully,

Name

Address

City, State, Zip

And here is contact info for all the City Council Members:

Ed Reyes – District 1
Room 410
(213) 473-7001 / (213) 485-8907 fax
councilmember.reyes@lacity.org
other staff:
jose.gardea@lacity.org rebecca.valdez@lacity.org,
guadalupe.duran.medina@lacity.org, tony.perez@lacity.org,
susan.s.wong@lacity.org

Paul Krekorian (newly elected) – District 2
Room 475
(213) 473-7002 / (213) 680-7895 fax

Dennis P. Zine – District 3 (the Valley)
Room 450
(213) 473-7003 / (213) 485-8988 fax
councilmember.zine@lacity.org
other staff:
brian.perry@lacity.org, jonathan.brand@lacity.org,
Jessica.Tarman@lacity.org, Christopher.Olsen@lacity.org

Tom LaBonge – District 4
Room 480
(213) 473-7004 / (213) 624- 7810 fax
councilmember.labonge@lacity.org
other staff:
renee.weitzer@lacity.org, rory.fitzpatrick@lacity.org,
lisa.schechter@lacity.org, carolyn.ramsay@lacity.org,
doug.mensman@lacity.org

Paul Koretz – District 5
Room 440
(213) 473-7005 / (213) 978-2250 fax
paul.koretz@lacity.org

Tony Cardenas – District 6
Room 455
(213) 473-7006 / (213) 847-0549 fax
councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org

Richard Alarcón – District 7
Room 465
(213) 473-7007 / (213) 847-0707 fax
councilmember.alarcon@lacity.org
other staff:
saeed.ali@lacity.org, ackley.padilla@lacity.org, sarah.brennan@lacity.org,
marisa.alcaraz@lacity.org, becca.doten@lacity.org,
Faisal.Alserri@lacity.org

Bernard Parks – District 8
Room 460
(213) 473-7008 / (213) 485-7683 fax
Councilmember.Parks@lacity.org

Jan Perry – District 9
Assistant President Pro Tempore
Room 420
(213) 473-7009 / (213) 473-5946 fax
Jan.Perry@lacity.org
other staff:
Kathy.Godfrey@lacity.org, Greg.Fischer@lacity.org,
Eva.Kandarpa@lacity.org, Stephanie.Magnien@lacity.org,
Brandy.Chappell@lacity.org

Herb J. Wesson, Jr. – District 10
Room 430
(213) 473-7010 / (213) 485-9829 fax
councilmember.wesson@lacity.org

Bill Rosendahl – District 11
Room 415
(213) 473-7011 / (213) 473-6926 fax
councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org
other staff:
mike.bonin@lacity.org, laura.mclennan@lacity.org, nate.kaplan@lacity.org,
Paul.Backstrom@lacity.org, whitney.blumenfeld@lacity.org,
norman.kulla@lacity.org, mark.grant@lacity.org

Greig Smith – District 12
Room 405
(213) 473-7012 / (213) 473-6925 fax
greig.smith@lacity.org
other stuff:
mitch.englander@lacity.org, john.s.lee@lacity.org,
nicole.bernson@lacity.org, phyllis.winger@lacity.org,
doug.tripp@lacity.org

Eric Garcetti – District 13 (Atwater Village)
President
Room 470
(213) 473-7013 / (213) 613-0819 fax
councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org
other staff:
Ana.Guerrero@lacity.org, Heleen.Ramirez@lacity.org, Julie.Wong@lacity.org,
lynnette.amerian@lacity.org, Kate.Hennigan@lacity.org,
sarah.dusseault@lacity.org

José Huizar – District 14 (Northeast Los Angeles)
Room 425
(213) 473-7014 / (213) 847-0680 fax
councilmember.huizar@lacity.org <mailto:councilmember.huizar@lacity.org>
other staff:
Ana.Cubas@lacity.org, Francine.Godoy@lacity.org, Rick.Coca@lacity.org,
Erik.Sanjurjo@lacity.org, Deanna.Kitamura@lacity.org

Janice Hahn – District 15
Room 435
(213) 473-7015 / (213) 626-5431 fax
janice.hahn@lacity.org
other staff:
courtney.chesla@lacity.org, Jenny.Chavez@lacity.org,
Eric.Brown@lacity.org, jennifer.rivera@lacity.org,
Olivia.Kelly@lacity.org, frank.hong@lacity.org

4 Comments »

tammara

I would add:
4) Eliminate any provisions that violate patients privacy. The government has no right to look, examine or seize patients records.

5) Eliminate any provisions that specify that collectives must be 1000 feet from any schools, parks, hospitals, or private housing, etc.
Given our density, this would make it impossible for any collectives to operate. This is really important. If the worry is that kids will be exposed to medical marijuana, make the age for buying 21.

6) Eliminate specific amounts collectives can keep on premises. Again, this is unreasonable and makes it impossible to operate safely.

Treat these places like a drugstore or CVS, don’t put controls on these places that make them akin to something that is illegal and has to be monitored for the publics safety.

BTW: I’ve tried and tried to get a copy of this ordinance (the latest version) can you tell me where? I’ve tried lacity.org to no avail
Natural

That sounds great I agree with all 3 points. I would only add to eliminante the hours of operation a collective may operate, if CVS and RiteAid can stay open as late as they want (even 24 hours a day) why not a medical marijuana collective? All patients may not be able to visit between the hours of 10am and 8pm.

As for 1000 ft from public facilities and other collectives, I think those are both good rules to follow.
http://drugjustice.org Jeff

Thanks for doing this, but the idea of background checks for dispensary owners is outrageous. It only serves to exacerbate the already-crippling problem of prison recidivism. The War on Drugs has wasted too many lives by slamming the doors of opportunity in the faces of anyone with a prior drug conviction. It’s bad enough that former offenders who have served their time can’t get many jobs – we don’t need to yank away another opportunity for them to rejoin society in a productive way. That vengeful attitude is part of what contributes to the massive criminal underground of the drug market in the first place.
http://la.metblogs.com Burns!

“Hashing out” would’ve been funny.

This letter is great (along with the additions.) I’ll be faxing a copy to my favorite councilman this morning. Thanks.

City Council to vote on Medical Marijuana on Wednesday

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