Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
Orange County Register - It Is Time for Cities to Alleviate the Suffering and Stop Fighting the Compassionate Use Act
It is amazing that this is still an issue anywhere in California 13 years after voters approved the Compassionate Use Act, permitting patients with a recommendation from a licensed physician to use marijuana to treat or alleviate various medical conditions. But it appears that the West County Patient Collective Association, a medical marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach, will face the possibility of being forced to close if either Seal Beach or Huntington Beach annexes the currently unincorporated town.
Both Seal Beach and Huntington Beach ban such dispensaries within their city limits, for reasons we are unable to fathom. Neither city has made a decision yet on the West County group.
Although a few hard-core drug warriors continue to be in denial, the medicinal properties of marijuana have been affirmed both by the anecdotal experience of patients and scientific testing.
The federal government's Institute of Medicine, in a 1999 report triggered by California's passage of its medical marijuana law in 1996, reviewed every scientific test in existence at the time. It confirmed that marijuana has been proven to alleviate suffering over a range of ailments, from preventing nausea associated with chemotherapy to wide-spectrum pain relief to multiple sclerosis to migraine headaches.
The federal government, despite the scientific evidence, continues to keep marijuana on Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning any possession, production or use is illegal under federal law. But numerous court tests have confirmed that the exceptions carved out in California and 12 other states are valid in those states, and that the responsibility of state and local officials is to honor California law and leave federal law to the feds.
Yet resistance continues.
Although the Sunset Beach Community Association has received about a dozen complaints about the very existence of the dispensary, none allege specific complaints about the way it is operated. There is no evidence of additional crime, loitering or dispensing to people not qualified as patients.
Whether Seal Beach or Huntington Beach annexes Sunset Beach, the West County Patient Collective should be "grandfathered" in as an existing legitimate business whose closing would be unjustified and unnecessarily cruel to the 500 patients who rely on it for their medicine.
NewsHawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2009 The Orange County Register
Contact: letters@ocregister.com
Website: The Orange County Register
It is amazing that this is still an issue anywhere in California 13 years after voters approved the Compassionate Use Act, permitting patients with a recommendation from a licensed physician to use marijuana to treat or alleviate various medical conditions. But it appears that the West County Patient Collective Association, a medical marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach, will face the possibility of being forced to close if either Seal Beach or Huntington Beach annexes the currently unincorporated town.
Both Seal Beach and Huntington Beach ban such dispensaries within their city limits, for reasons we are unable to fathom. Neither city has made a decision yet on the West County group.
Although a few hard-core drug warriors continue to be in denial, the medicinal properties of marijuana have been affirmed both by the anecdotal experience of patients and scientific testing.
The federal government's Institute of Medicine, in a 1999 report triggered by California's passage of its medical marijuana law in 1996, reviewed every scientific test in existence at the time. It confirmed that marijuana has been proven to alleviate suffering over a range of ailments, from preventing nausea associated with chemotherapy to wide-spectrum pain relief to multiple sclerosis to migraine headaches.
The federal government, despite the scientific evidence, continues to keep marijuana on Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning any possession, production or use is illegal under federal law. But numerous court tests have confirmed that the exceptions carved out in California and 12 other states are valid in those states, and that the responsibility of state and local officials is to honor California law and leave federal law to the feds.
Yet resistance continues.
Although the Sunset Beach Community Association has received about a dozen complaints about the very existence of the dispensary, none allege specific complaints about the way it is operated. There is no evidence of additional crime, loitering or dispensing to people not qualified as patients.
Whether Seal Beach or Huntington Beach annexes Sunset Beach, the West County Patient Collective should be "grandfathered" in as an existing legitimate business whose closing would be unjustified and unnecessarily cruel to the 500 patients who rely on it for their medicine.
NewsHawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2009 The Orange County Register
Contact: letters@ocregister.com
Website: The Orange County Register
