City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley plan to drastically reduce the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles.
Earlier this month, Cooley and Trutanich announced that the majority of marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles would face prosecution on the grounds that they violate state law, which bans the sale and distribution of marijuana.
The crackdown is occurring in the face of Attorney General Eric Holder’s memo issued on Monday, which asked federal prosecutors not to target marijuana users and distributors in states that allow medical marijuana.
But Dale Gieringer, the director of California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the memo is essentially a restatement of what Holder said earlier in the year and actually gives Cooley and Trutanich broad authority to decide what is legal.
Gieringer said he believes the prosecution of Los Angeles marijuana dispensaries will proceed as planned.
“I have no doubt that (Cooley is) about to make a bunch of arrests and take a bunch of people to court and press his argument as far as he can,” Gieringer said.
Although Cooley and Trutanich do not have the manpower to prosecute all of Los Angeles’ dispensaries, the mere threat of litigation may be sufficient to radically thin the ranks of cannabis businesses.
In Westwood, dispensary owners can already see the gathering clouds: Two of Westwood’s five dispensaries are currently closed, and calls to the dispensaries were not returned.
Adel B., the manager of Westwood Caregivers, a cannabis dispensary on Le Conte Avenue, said he is tired of operating his business in a gray area.
“The city is contradicting itself,” Adel said. “They’re the ones who gave us the permit in the first place, and now they’re saying they’re going to sue us for using it?”
Adel has been managing Westwood Caregivers since January, and he’s been in the industry since 2005.
He said he has committed himself to the difficult task of running a “by the books” business in an industry where there is almost no official regulation. He grows his own product instead of purchasing it illegally, charges sales tax, and carefully evaluates each of his patients’ medical condition and the reputation of the recommending doctor.
But since Westwood Caregivers opened while the 2007 Los Angeles City Council moratorium on cannabis dispensaries was active, his business is still at risk of prosecution.
“Put the guidelines in front of us, let’s talk about what’s right and wrong … so everyone can play ball,” Adel said.
Susan Leahy, the manager of The Farmacy on Gayley Avenue, echoed a similar sentiment.
“The city has had over two years to get their act together,” said Leahy, who has written to city council members to invite them to her store.
Medical marijuana patients at UCLA are also afraid they will be caught on the wrong side of the law.
“I don’t want to be driving around thinking I can legally have (marijuana) in my trunk and then all of a sudden get busted for it,” said Michael A., a fourth-year environmental science student.
Michael said he uses cannabis to treat attention deficit disorder.
Gieringer said it is possible that the district attorney’s threats are an attempt to force the passage of an official ordinance and to clarify the legal status of marijuana in Los Angeles.
“There really is no good case law as to what constitutes a legal dispensary,” Gieringer said.
Strangely enough, marijuana is both legal and illegal under state law. Proposition 215 was passed by voter referendum in 1996 and created an exemption from criminal penalties for the cultivation, use and possession of medical marijuana.
The law was expanded in 2004 with the passage of Senate Bill 420, which authorized patient collectives to distribute and sell medical marijuana on a nonprofit basis to the members of the collective.
However, a different state law and federal law currently ban the sale and distribution of marijuana, and in 2007, the Los Angeles City Council passed a moratorium on the opening of new cannabis dispensaries.
On Monday, a Superior Court judge ruled the moratorium illegal and provided an injunction against closure for Green Oasis, a dispensary in Culver City.
“This isn’t being done in a sensible manner,” said Mark Kleiman, a UCLA professor of public policy and the author of “Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control.”
There is still no official marijuana ordinance in Los Angeles, though one may be in the works. On Tuesday, Trutanich’s office delivered a draft resolution for an ordinance that the city council may vote on this week, according to the Los Angeles Times.
However, Gieringer said that many parts of Trutanich’s proposal are unrealistic, such as the section that stipulates dispensary owners must register the names of the members of the collective with local police departments. He believes the battle is likely to continue until a federal law is passed.
“The laws on marijuana are bankrupt,” Gieringer said. “What kind of policy is it when your law is so screwed up that you have to direct your attorneys not to enforce them?”