Chance to weigh-in and make a difference

[mr.greengenes]

Dear Forum Member,

I am participating in an anonymous news story blog in a local paper. I invite and encourage forum members to read the story about a proposed medical marijuana dispensary and comment anonymously as well. The applicant of the proposed dispensary is being stonewalled by the Hollister City Council and local press without due process (imagine that!). Your consideration and support is appreciated. Check out the Freelancenews.com and peruse
Report submitted on Hollister pot shop idea
Dec 16, 2009
By The Free Lance Staff




A Purple Cross Rx representative recently spoke to city council members expressing concern about the zoning code allowing use of a marijuana dispensary, which the group has now proposed.
Photo by: Free Lance file photo




Purple Cross Rx submitted an informational report this week on the possibility of opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Hollister in an industrial park near the airport, and it could be on the agenda for council members' discussion Monday.

The dispensary, if approved, would be the only one with a 50-mile radius, according to the document. Geri Johnson, the city clerk, noted how the document submitted by Purple Cross is not officially a proposal and rather can be classified as a report.

That document also includes a testimonial from a local doctor, Mohammad Al Hasan, M.D., who provided a letter of support in favor of the idea and the use of medicinal marijuana. It goes on to list off specifications in the plan such as the following:

- It would be established only within a commercial or industrial zone.

- It would be located no closer than 1,000 feet to schools and places of worship, and 1,000 feet from any other established dispensary.

- It would engage in on-site cultivation of medicinal marijuana in accordance with state guidelines.

- It would not allow anyone under age 18 to enter unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

- Hours would be restricted to a minimum of 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

- It would file for a seller's permit and pay sales taxes to the state board of equalization.

- It would employ about 10 people full time and at least 5 percent of its gross revenues would be donated to local organizations, with it estimates could amount to $371,200 in the first year.

Purple Cross Rx also points out how it "understands and respects the need for security at all medical cannabis dispensaries." It would use security cameras and employ at least two trained full-time security guards on premises during operating hours, according to the proposal, which adds how the dispensary would be about a quarter of a mile from the police station.

 

[mr.greengenes]

...and here's the opinion of the editorial board of the same newspaper and responses>

Editorial: Council should respect law, reject pot dispensary
Dec 15, 2009
By The Free Lance Editorial Board

Hollister council members should respect federal law and disapprove of a medicinal marijuana shop opening in an industrial park near the airport.

Local officials throughout California are overstepping their jurisdictional boundaries in authorizing these operations. Not only are they a front for legal, recreational use by most of their customers, but they also blatantly violate federal law.

This debate should stretch no further than a simple interpretation of the law. And there really is no room for interpretation - nor should there be. We advise Hollister City Council members to cite their own zoning laws that prohibit any operations in violation of state or federal law and turn away the Purple Cross Rx organization that has indicated interest in opening a shop here.

Since when did a local municipality have the right to political name federal law? This debate, which is swirling as of late with several communities throughout the state considering laws related to medicinal marijuana shops, shows a particularly convoluting consequence of the California proposition system.

State voters in 1996 passed the ballot measure to legalize medicinal marijuana with 56 percent approval. Supporters of the measure, and a majority of California voters, were ill-advised in believing the all-mighty and ultra-flawed proposition system gave citizens the right to revolt against federal authority.

Federal law classifies marijuana as an illegal narcotic. It would be no different from a legal perspective, though much less acceptable, if a California lobbying effort succeeded in getting a proposition passed legalizing cocaine, also classified as an illegal narcotic. It's rather surprising that the United States Supreme Court hasn't taken up and overturned the state's legalization of medicinal marijuana.

That's where the legal, moral and medical debate should occur - in Washington, D.C.

In Hollister, as long as the U.S. government and Federal Drug Administration view it as an illegal drug, council members can save a lot of time and energy by taking the discussion here no further than the city zoning code that stresses a respect for the law.
The Free Lance Editorial Board
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Hey pal - you missed the bus. The debate WAS had in washington - long ago, when the country was formed as a republic. Maybbe you should take the time to read all the court cases that say CA's laws regrding medical marijuana DO NOT conflict with the federal laws - as well as those decisions saying that the State of CA (and that means counties and cities, which are "political subdivisions" thereof), cannot enforce federal law at all - especially when it conflicts with State law.
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mr.greengenes 17 hours ago

Dear Editorial Board,
A little research into the matter of cannabis legalization is in order. However, that would have taken more than the 15 minutes someone spent writing the myopic and misinformed status quo opinion reflective of the Editorial Board. Perhaps if the Freelance attempted a 'fair and balanced' perspective and applied the archaic principle of investigative journalism into the issue of medical marijuana more readers would be interested in subscribing to the paper. The bottom line is that it appears that The Freelance Editorial Board does not believe that medical marijuana benefits the terminally ill or patients with chronic, painful and debilitating diseases. The 'legal, moral and medical debate should not occur in Washington D.C. as you point out. It should occur here in the community by those affected by disease and need relief or by their caregivers on their behalf. Some research into palliative care treatment would edify the board and its readers.
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mr.greengenes 17 hours ago

Editorial Board,
Please consider the journalistic effort of Newsweek Magazine:

More than 100 million Americans have smoked pot. Thirteen states have medical marijuana laws on the books, and a dozen more are considering legislation. Studies have shown that the substance can stimulate appetite, ease muscle spasms and numb pain.

Yet since 1970, when Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substance Act into law, the time-slowing green plant known as marijuana has been a Schedule 1 controlled substance: classified alongside drugs like heroin and PCP—and deemed more harmful than cocaine, meth, and Ketamine. Pot advocates call that reality the “Schedule I Lie” —referring to the drug’s federal classification as the most potent of drugs, considered, by law, to have “no accepted medical use.”


The idea that a few tokes every now and then is more harmful than the recreational use of dog tranquilizer seems a bit, well, bogus, considering its mainstream acceptance. Barack Obama has openly admitted to smoking pot; Michael Phelps has tried it (and still managed to bring home eight gold medals); and earlier this year, attorney general Eric Holder discouraged U.S. attorneys from prosecuting retailers in medical marijuana states. There are pot TV shows and cities (like Oakland) that are now taxing the drug’s medicinal use to bring in extra revenue.

Yet despite how the culture around pot has changed, defenders of the current federal policy have clung to a prominent, and trusted, ally to back them: the American Medical Association, which the justice department often cites when enforcing marijuana policy.

So it it might have come as a surprise on Tuesday when the AMA announced that, after 72 years, it was reversing its pot policy—and urged the federal government to do the same. Precipitated by a similar decision by the group’s Medical Student Section, the AMA resolved that “that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule 1 controlled substance be reviewed,” with the goal of facilitating clinical research, and presented a new medical report, conducted by its Council on Science and Public Health, laying out the drug’s various medical benefits.

The AMA hopes the resolution will make clinical research on cannabis—long a roadblock in proving that the substance was ill-classified—a more-easily obtained reality. At present, getting the necessary clearance to study a Schedule 1 drug is a near-impossible bureaucratic nightmare that involves multiple government agencies, and purchase of notoriously low-potency pot from the government’s only legal growth facility, at the University of Mississippi. As a result, “only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis,” physician (and AMA board member) Edward Langston told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week.

Tthe AMA move is a powerful symbolic gesture—"a huge shift in medical ideology," says the medical student who spearheaded the resolution—and demolishes the long-held pot prohibitionist claim that "no sound scientific studies have supported medical use of smoked marijuana.”

Realistically, however, the future looks hazy. “This is symbolic if nothing else because the AMA is abandoning this flat-earth policy it's held for decades," says Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for Reform of the Marijuana Laws and the coauthor of Marijuana Is Safer; So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?. “But does the AMA have the power to reschedule marijuana, or even get the ball rolling so that those who have the power will do it?
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Dirtylance 2 hours ago

After some research, it seems local government attempted an end-around to the Brown Act by addressing a zoning issue regarding the exact location an applicant was proposing a medical marijuana dispensary PRIOR to due process of the application. Worse, The Freelance appears to be in collusion with that effort. If so, then the grand jury should look into potential improprieties of civil and/or criminal law. For better or worse, due process requires bureacrats and elected officials to follow the law and allow applicants to submit proposals for medical marijuana dispensaries or any other facility within a jurisdiction. And the process is supposed to be fair and transparent. Conclusions have been made by the mayor and supported by the press without any regard to the rights of the applicant. Due process requires city staff and elected officials to study the medical marijuana dispensary proposal without prejudice and deliberate accordingly during open public agendized meetings. The Freelance Editorial Board should be ashamed of its unprofessional conduct and disservice to the public. Not only has there been a rush to judgment on this issue, the local press has supplied the proverbial noose to an innocent citizen and the civil rights of medical marijuana patients in Hollister/San Benito County.

 

[mr.greengenes]

The predictably retarded city council shot it down in flames.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

:rofl: you can delete the thread at the first post..lol


Merry Christmas...sorry it was shot down