California, Santa Monica

[budman]

Pot Initiative on Ballot

The Santa Monica Mirror
Jul 27, 2006
Hannah Heineman
Mirror Staff Writer

After hearing from the community, Santa Monica’s City Council has decided to place an initiative on the November ballot that would make adult marijuana use the lowest priority for the police department.

The Council had limited options regarding the initiative since supporters were able to obtain more than enough signatures for it to qualify for the ballot (7,335 people signed the petition). Either they had to allow the voters to decide or adopt it as an ordinance.

Councilmember Kevin McKeown summed up the consensus of the Council that it was better to place the initiative on the ballot since it wasn’t locally generated. “The precise language that was given to us [from the Marijuana Policy Project out of Washington D.C.] creates problems we don’t need and solves problems we don’t have. Our efforts to negotiate a resolution that could be adopted as an ordinance failed.” He also mentioned there would most likely be a “robust public debate.”

The Council had initially discussed the issue on June 27, but delayed a decision so City staff could do an analysis on the issue. Santa Monica Police Chief James T. Butts prepared that analysis in the form of an impact report. Butts noted that the proposed initiative “fails to define what quantifiable amount of marijuana would equate to an amount possessed for personal use versus an amount possessed for purposes of sales.” It also “fails to distinguish marijuana from concentrated cannabis, i.e. “hashish” and “hash oil” and “fails to address marijuana cultivation for personal use which under current law are felonies.” He also concluded that the proposed ordinance would cause his department to have to ignore calls about public marijuana use, the smell of marijuana which “often provides the basis of a significant investigation,” strict time consuming reporting requirements for marijuana offenders and “require the police department to ensure that all other requests for police services (including barking dogs, parking violations, construction noise, reports and other non-emergency calls) are handled before a police officer is dispatched to a call involving an adult in possession of marijuana on private property.”

Nicki La Rosa from Santa Monicans for Sensible Marijuana Policy (SMSMP) told the Council many of Chief Butts’ assertions about the initiative “are directly at odds with actual text of the initiative.”

Vicki Norris also disagreed with the staff report by noting a similar initiative has been successful in Seattle. “While the police were initially against it, they came to appreciate that arrests have gone down, use has not gone up and they can concentrate their time on violent and other serious crimes.” Jack Cole, a retired undercover narcotics police officer, agreed with Norris. “By doing this you can perhaps even save lives. I believe law enforcement could use their time better because now they are spending so much time and energy chasing around marijuana smokers.”

Resident Rita Loenthal urged the Council to support the initiative by noting, “The goal in the larger sense is to deal with the criminal justice system and the failed drug policy in this country. Things have to start somewhere. Certainly, Santa Monica can contribute…to the larger scope of this whole problem.”

Others spoke about the medical use of marijuana. Luciano Hernandez, also from SMSMP, noted, “Marijuana is not a cause of cancer from the latest research. Medical marijuana is a valid, legally prescribed medicine the State of California has approved.”

Tricia Roth M.D., the Chair of the local Substance Abuse Committee of the Academy of Pediatrics, disagreed by stating, “There’s no scientific evidence that says marijuana is not a cancer risk. There is a recent incidence of leukemia in children of parents who smoked marijuana.”

[Midnight toker]

Reefer Reform

By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer
The Lookout

October 2 -- The war on drugs came down to the grassroots level when supporters of Measure Y squared off against local police on the enforcement of marijuana laws in Santa Monica in a debate on CityTV.

Comparing current drug laws to the Prohibition laws of the 1920’s, advocates of the proposed municipal code ordinance that would make adult personal use of marijuana the police’s lowest enforcement policy see their campaign as part of a larger response to a national policy they call “indefensible.”

“Over the last 35 years, the United States has been involved in one of the most massive public policy failures in our history. It’s called the war on drugs,” said Bill Zimmerman, chairman of Americans for Medical Rights, a medical marijuana lobbying group based in Santa Monica.

The federal government has spent “billions of dollars, jailed millions of people, and at the end of 35 years, we find more drugs in circulation in our society,” Zimmerman said.

But the police officers who defended Santa Monica’s current drug enforcement policy kept their vision closer to home.

Calling the proposed ordinance “a solution looking for a problem,” Sergeant Jay Trisler, chairman of the Santa Monica Police Officers Association, said that citations for adult personal use of marijuana are already a low priority, and, unless convicted of additional offenses, violators get off easily with a citation and a $100 fine.

Further, Trisler said that codifying the priority below “barking dog calls” and report calls -- in which officers gather information but there’s no crime in progress -- will interfere with the department’s ability to guarantee the “quality of life” that Santa Monica residents have come to expect.

The debate bounced back and forth, between global policy issues such as racism and laws in Seattle and Oakland to the nitty-gritty of actual cases in which Santa Monica Police used neighbors’ calls about suspicious smells to zero in on felons.

Michael Gray, author of “Drug Crazy,” an indictment of the federal government’s war on drugs, challenged Sergeant Mohamed Marhaba of the Police Activies League -- a center that works with local at-risk youth.

“The problem, Mohamed, I think, is the racial component,” said Gray.

Black youth are three times as likely to be caught, four times as likely to be convicted and five times as likely to be imprisoned as white youth, although the same percentage in each group uses marijuana, he said.

“If that can be described as anything other than a race war, I don’t know how you do it,” Gray said, adding that current national and state laws give the police “the ability to arrest someone at will.”

Zimmerman added that Santa Monica’s $100 fine is just the tip of the iceberg. Students who are cited lose their federal student loans, and families can be evicted from subsidized housing if one of their members runs afoul of the marijuana laws.

“They could keep those benefits if they simply followed the law,” Marhaba shot back.

Gray and Zimmerman cited similar laws on the books in Seattle, Oakland and West Hollywood, and said they’re working out well.

“I think the make-up of this city is unique and I’m not too sure we can compare it to the other cities,” Marhaba responded.

“Crime is at an all-time low since the 1950s,” added Trisler.

“We take pride in our service orientation,” Trisler said. “Having this go down lower than a parking citation is not what the community is going to want.”

As the debate focused in on the particulars of the ordinance, both sides agreed that it would require police to respond to every other request for service before checking out suspicions of indoor pot smoking.

“I would much rather see the police department taking some of those report calls for crimes like burglary than busting some of my friends for smoking a joint in the privacy of their homes,” Zimmerman said.

But it’s not that simple, the officers rejoined. In one case, a neighbor’s complaint led to an arrest of an armed dealer who took his four-year-old niece driving with him when he made his drug sales rounds.

In another recent example, complaints by business owners led to the discovery of 175 pounds of marijuana, grown hydroponically in a storage facility across the street from a public school.

Had the officers had to wait while they responded to “barking dog” calls, the evidence might no longer have been there, they said.

Both sides went back and forth on the issue -- proponents of the ordinance saying Measure Y would in no way interfere with making such arrests, while opponents argued that it would.

As the argument went on, it went through a logical warp in which the officers said that no matter what, they’d still cite violators of the state’s marijuana laws, even if they couldn’t respond as quickly as they’d like, while the measure’s advocates claimed that ultimately, it would slow down police efforts.

“This ordinance doesn’t prevent the person being arrested,” Tisler said. “All it does, it just makes our response a little lower.”

“But it’s going to make it less likely the person’s going to be arrested,” responded Zimmerman.

The debate wound down with competing appeals to community values.

The ordinance “will appeal more to law-abiding citizens than law-breaking citizens,” said Zimmerman.

“We don’t consider someone smoking a joint in the privacy of his home a law-breaker, and we don’t believe that most of the voters in Santa Monica consider such people law-breakers either,” he said.

Perhaps because of his job, Marhaba sees the community from a different angle.

“I don’t know that this is a message that we really want to send to our children that smoking marijuana is not a big deal,” he said. “Marijuana is not purchased from a vending machine…the drug deal is involved in a trade that is illegal.”

Measure Y “is a bad example to give to our children…a dangerous measure for our safety.”


The debate was co-sponsored by CityTV, the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica Education Fund and the Center for Governmental Studies.

CityTV will be making its election programming available with prime time airings on cable channel 16, 24/7 airings on cable channel 75, video-on-demand on Time Warner Cable, and on its election website www.smvote.org.

[palmspringsbum]

Santa Monica: Live Free or High

Steve Stajich, Mirror Contribuing Writer
The Santa Monica Mirror
November 16, 2006

Okay, maybe we won’t be fighting New Hampshire in court over use of that motto. But you can bet that as soon as the post-election punditry settles down and the news channels start looking for “Hey, Martha!”-type topics, our town will draw attention for having passed Measure Y, which reduces the enforcement priority on adult personal use of marijuana in Santa Monica.

I voted in favor of the measure, and obviously so did a lot of other Santa Monica voters. Now that we’ve spoken, saying, I think, that we don’t want law enforcement resources distracted with “busting” adults for deploying joints (with exceptions for minors, sale of marijuana, use on public property and driving under the influence) when there’s a world of other things they could be doing… what else have we said with the passing of Y?

Certainly one is left with the feeling that marijuana use is here to stay. So are we, as a city, striking that off our list of targets in any kind of “war on drugs?” Are we tacitly approving marijuana’s integration into our (what do we say here?) culture of pleasure? Certainly continued purchase and use of the drug is no secret anymore in just about every corner of America.

Discussions about pot inevitably wander, perhaps because users are often having those discussions. It’s difficult to start out talking about pot’s place in contemporary society and not have the conversation skid all over the map of drugs, alcohol, substance use in general and legalization in specific. Assuming that millions turn to this column for leadership on the big issues, here are some thoughts on marijuana post-Measure Y from a middle-aged dude who’s had too much coffee.

While we need to quit wasting time busting medical marijuana outlets and provide those people the comfort they deserve, we should think at least twice about legalizing pot. Not because of anything specific about the drug, but because America’s experiments in legalizing the recreational drugs alcohol and nicotine (delivered by tobacco) have had mixed results to say the least. Add up deaths from lung cancer, alcohol abuse, drunk driving, death and injury related to alcohol-fueled violence, and you have a hard time selling me a “more drugs, please” agenda. Forget the relative mellowness of pot and ask a schoolteacher about making it easier to obtain intoxicants.

We need to widen our definition of a “drug” and begin teaching a larger framework of consciousness and non-consciousness. It’s not enough to provide kids with drug “information.” We need to inculcate awareness of human potential and how its power can be diminished not only by traditional “drugs” and alcohol but also by such things as a costly and often distracting obsession with fashion and brands. Ideally, your kid would get off the sofa and get a summer job. Having done so, does he use the money for new jeans made overseas by exploited workers or does he buy a book about global economics? Or maybe he just scores some weed.

It would help next generations if we learned to be as “out” about our weaknesses as we are now about sexuality and politics. While celebrities have learned to capitalize on rehab experiences, regular folks like us might do well to confess, “I’m fat because I drink too much beer and have a bad diet. Pizza is a kind of drug for me. I eat to relax and not because I’m hungry…etc.” We need the awareness, and the kids around us could learn from it as well.

So pot use is a weakness? To properly answer that, I’d have to tell you exactly how much wine I drink every week. But I drink that wine in many different locations all over the city, without having that act pull law enforcement away from something more important. Now that things are officially more relaxed, maybe we should get together and talk more about why we do the things we do.

[palmspringsbum]

Publisher’s Notebook: Medical Marijuana

by Michael Rosenthal, Santa Monica Mirror
October 4th, 2007


60 Minutes did a hatchet job on medical marijuana the other night. They criticized how easy it is to get a prescription for medical marijuana, yet made no comparison to how simple it is to get one for Valium, a more widely prescribed drug. Is there recreational Prozac? If people feel stressed in our modern world and MJ helps them to relax, then why not allow them to have it. Any good doctor can see the benefit of a drug that allows for almost instant relaxation and in a method that allows the patient to regulate the usage. The story ended by having one of the subjects in the piece claim the current system is just “chaos.” It seems to me the only thing chaotic is the Federal government’s randomness in attacking dispensaries. They made it seem as if West Hollywood was one big dispensary. Any casual drive through that part of town will quickly reveal the paucity of dispensaries compared to the usage demanded by the public. In fact, you can hardly find one. More worrisome to me would be the amount of fast food shops there are in town, as they are a much greater risk to health.

Santa Monica will have to soon come to grips with its own formula for allowing medical marijuana farmacies. The city’s planning department is currently drafting rules for just such a thing. The DEA may head them off at the pass, though, as they are on a new kick, threatening landlords or property owners where dispensaries exist. How rude can you get? They have been “told” that Santa Monica does not want dispensaries. Uh, did anyone check out the poll booth? Seventy-three percent voted in favor of medical marijuana. I think there is more than a consensus here.

There are still a couple of prudish members of the City Council who, despite the overwhelming support of the public on this issue, hold out the false belief that they can ultimately prevent dispensaries from opening. The best approach I have seen so far comes from those that dispense medical MJ along with other homeopathic, naturopathic, or herbal-type drugs. In the end, the city will formulate rules that will allow a dispensary to sell this product as its primary purpose. I find this method of distribution far more civilized then having to acquire the drug in a back alley, or from people who have other harder drugs to sell with it – that is where the real danger lies. These clubs sell quality merchandise with great variety, mostly organic, and in forms for ingestion as well.

For the record, I do not smoke or eat or ingest marijuana. I like the smell and enjoyed the drug, but it has been many years since I imbibed, and, as odd as it sounds, medical reasons prohibit me from using it now. Most important to me is the public’s right to enjoy it without arrest and imprisonment. In addition, I like the fact that, as the State’s largest cash crop, it allows people to live on the land in our more remote parts of the State, bringing a healthy balance to those economies. I do oppose poaching on public lands – those people are dangerous.

[palmspringsbum]

City Hall accused of dragging feet on medicinal marijuana

by Kevin Herrera, Santa Monica Daily Press
October 26th, 2007


Word spread quickly about the Herb King on Main Street and the owner's recent decision to dispense medical marijuana. So quickly, in fact, that the midnight tokers barely had enough time to exhale before City Hall put a chokehold on the herbalist, effectively chasing it out of town.

While medical marijuana dispensaries are allowed under state law and have sprouted up al­l over Southern California, city officials have not allowed them to set up shop in Santa Monica.

That could change following a recent report by city planners outlining several ways in which the operations could be regulated to cut down on their impact on the community.

Dispensaries offering marijuana to qualified patients could be forced to apply for a conditional use permit that would limit their hours of operation and place other restrictions on the owner. The City Council could limit dispensaries to certain areas of the city that are at least 1,000 feet away from schools, parks, religious centers and day care facilities.

“Every community is different (in how they choose to regulate dispensaries) and every community is unique when it comes to their tolerance level,” said Jing Yeo, a senior city planner who looked at the ways in which 26 cities and eight counties regulate medical marijuana.

<span class=postbigbold>Planting The Seed</span>

Allowing medical marijuana dispensaries became an issue for Santa Monica in February, when entrepreneur Nathan Hamilton asked the council to allow him to open up shop on the 2200 block of Main Street. Hamilton, who now operates a dispensary in Tarzana, said there is a strong need for a dispensary in the city, citing at least 50 patients at his Tarzana facility who are Santa Monica residents and would much rather go to a location closer to home.

When Hamilton made his request, there were no zoning codes covering dispensaries, which makes them a prohibited use in Santa Monica. The council instructed city staff to look into the issue and study how other governing bodies have handled it.

Since then, Herb King began to distribute medical marijuana, furthering the need for an official response. Representatives from Herb King did not return phone calls seeking comment.

While the federal government considers smoking and possessing pot illegal — cracking down on dispensaries and cannabis clubs — medical marijuana is permitted under the state’s Compassionate Use Act, which was approved by voters in 1996. The law, in part, made legal the use of marijuana for medical purposes to qualified patients and their caregivers.

The law was further enhanced by SB 420, which went into effect in January 2004 and created a state-approved medical marijuana ID card program. The law established guidelines as to how much marijuana a patient or caregiver can possess and provided additional protections from state marijuana laws, including possession, transportation, distribution, importation and maintaining a place for selling, giving away or using a controlled substance.

Furthermore, the law authorizes patients with IDs to associate with one another in order to collectively or cooperatively cultivate medical marijuana.

<span class=postbigbold>You Got The Money? You Got The Stuff?</span>

Hamilton said his Santa Monica dispensary would operate much like a collective, in that it would be a nonprofit dedicated solely to the health of its members and not the wallets of its investors.

Patients would enter the dispensary, which would be guarded and protected, and choose from a selection of buds, paying only a suggested donation. The money would then go back to the growers to help them continue cultivating the medicine. As the manager, Hamilton would receive a salary.

It is better to operate in that fashion because it cuts down on greed, which distorts the true nature of dispensaries, Hamilton said. It also cuts down on the illegal drug dealers and gangs who are trying to take over the market.

When businesses like Herb King sell pot without a permit, it makes other dispensaries look bad and makes it more difficult for those who are legit to get cities like Santa Monica to let them in, said Hamilton, who said he was angered by Herb King’s move and frustrated by how long it has taken city staff to issue their report on the issue.

“I wish they would stop lagging,” said Hamilton, who said he has spent roughly $40,000 for the lease to his Main Street location, which sits empty. “I’ve been holding onto this lease in hopes that they would make a decision, but all they’ve done is kind of shine me on for the past year.

“I was basically told that the council doesn’t find this subject to be important enough to put on the agenda ... I tried that (Tuesday).”

Mayor Richard Bloom, who helps set the council agendas, said that the regulation of dispensaries won’t likely be discussed any time soon, however, that could change if one of his colleagues, or city staff, chooses to discuss it.

Bloom said he is not in favor of placing a dispensary in Santa Monica, given the concerns expressed by Santa Monica Police Chief Timothy Jackman, and the fact that there are 17 dispensaries located within a 5-mile radius of the city, and an additional 33 within a 10-mile radius.

“I don’t think there is an issue of necessity that would make us change existing zoning law to allow this use,” Bloom said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel bad knowing that people have to drive a couple of miles to access this kind of business.”

<span class=postbigbold>Buzzkill: The Police Position</span>

In the report to council, Jackman listed several concerns, one being possible raids by the federal government. Jackman said the DEA is increasing its efforts to shut down dispensaries and has conducted several raids in Los Angeles and West Hollywood. The raids have often been conducted without notification to local law enforcement.

Other concerns expressed by the police chief had to do with secondary effects, such as how patients are paying for the cannabis and any potentially illegal activities they may resort to if unable to pay for the marijuana.

Jackman also had concerns about the transportation of the marijuana from the growers to the dispensary, and about the profitability of such businesses. If they see sales drop, would the dispensaries sell illegal drugs to make ends meet?

Other police departments have expressed concerns about a criminal element being drawn to dispensaries, resulting in street dealers trying to sell buds at lower prices. There are also those who worry about burglary attempts on dispensaries.

Bloom said another thing to consider is the impact these businesses would have on pedestrians and the experience Santa Monica is trying to create.

“I think this really flies in the face of the pedestrian friendly atmosphere we are seeking,” Bloom said. “These dispensaries have high security, covered windows, and on top of that, you have a situation where the federal government is looking to raid these businesses. I don’t think that is a positive thing for the community.”

Supporters of dispensaries say they are providing a valuable public service, helping patients who are suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer and other ailments. They said properly run dispensaries pose no serious risk to public safety and have safeguards in place.

At Hamilton’s Tarzana facility, which city planners visited, patients are required to fill out a registration form showing evidence of a physician’s recommendation and designating the dispensary to be their primary caregiver. A supplemental form requires that the patient agree to not re-sell the medical cannabis and not to loiter around the dispensary.

Due to the number of burglaries that have occurred at dispensaries, the waiting room was separated from the consultation area by bulletproof glass and doors, city staff said.

The dispensary operates similar to a medical office with a file for each patient detailing dosage history. Hamilton said that he monitors the dosage for each patient and that no more than one ounce of marijuana is permitted per visit, unless the patient has a physician’s exemption.

The pot is displayed within a glass case in jars or packaged ready for purchase, such as with edible brownies, muffins or cookies. None of the products were grown on-site and extra inventory was stored in a safe. Smoking or eating the cannabis was not permitted on site.

Hamilton is holding out hope that a Councilmember will agendize the issue so that he can have a fair shot at convincing elected officials that allowing dispensaries is better than doing nothing because more groups will try to penetrate and operate under the radar, creating an unsafe situation.

The tolerance seems to be there, judging from the last election, in which 65 percent of Santa Monica voters agreed to make private, adult marijuana use the lowest law enforcement priority for the police department. Measure Y also requires the council to monitor any complaints, and the city clerk to send annual notice of the priority to federal and state representatives.

“The people want it, so why can’t they move forward on this issue?” Hamilton asked. “I have patients calling me every day who are waiting.”

kevinh@smdp.com