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If two state laws can't settle the problems with the distribution and sale of medical marijuana in California, perhaps a third or fourth one one will.
That's the latest from Sacramento, where Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento is the author of a bill to exempt from prosecution dispensaries that agree to maintain nonprofit status, improve security and follow other guidelines.
And Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has a bill to create a Division of Medical Marijuana Regulation and Enforcement in the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
The division would regulate "the cultivation, manufacture, testing, transportation, distribution, and sale of medical marijuana."
It's hard to find anyone who will argue that current state laws on medical marijuana have answered all questions and taken care of all business.
Prop. 215, which voters passed in 1996, authorizes medical marijuana. The Medical Marijuana Program, passed by the Legislature in 2003, tried to provide guidelines for its use and distribution.
But as California Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvin R. Baxter wrote in the court's recent ruling that upheld local government bans of medical marijuana dispensaries, the current laws "do not establish a comprehensive state system of legalized medical marijuana."
The recently introduced legislation recognizes that.
The biggest issue – of the many – is how medical marijuana is cultivated, regulated, and gets into the hands of those authorized to use it.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law. And the feds for years kept a distance from intervening in California's medical marijuana legalization, until October of 2011.
That's when the U.S. Attorneys in the state said they had identified several for-profit, grow-and-sell outlets that were operating with no conformity to the kind of non-profit, small-cultivation collectives that California law authorizes.
Federal prosecutors said Aaron Sandusky of Rancho Cucamonga used the "perceived ambiguity" of California's medical marijuana laws to create an illegal, for-profit operation that included a cultivation warehouse in Ontario and G3 Holistic dispensaries in Moreno Valley, Upland and Colton He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January on his conviction of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute hundreds of pounds of marijuana.
And another issue – who said anything about dispensaries in the first place?
In the Riverside-orginated California Supreme Court case that upheld local government bans on medical marijuana stores, dispensary owners argued they were protected by California's medical marijuana laws.
But proponents of the local bans argued the owners wanted protection for something that is not mentioned in the existing laws: Brick-and-mortar storefronts for selling medical marijuana.
Steinberg's and Ammiano's bills appear to be dealing with those issues, by describing what a dispensary is, setting up regulations for how they operate as a non-profit business, and making rules about how they obtain their product.
The proposed laws might answer the chief problem the feds have with medical marijuana in California, provide the uniformity that Associate Justice Baxter said was lacking, and offer protection for consumers as well.
Neither will affect the California Supreme Court ruling that allows local governments to ban dispensaries.
News Hawk- Truth Seeker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: pe.com
Author: Richard K. De Atley
Website: MEDICAL MARIJUANA: Another try at a legislative cure : Watchdog Blog
That's the latest from Sacramento, where Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento is the author of a bill to exempt from prosecution dispensaries that agree to maintain nonprofit status, improve security and follow other guidelines.
And Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has a bill to create a Division of Medical Marijuana Regulation and Enforcement in the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
The division would regulate "the cultivation, manufacture, testing, transportation, distribution, and sale of medical marijuana."
It's hard to find anyone who will argue that current state laws on medical marijuana have answered all questions and taken care of all business.
Prop. 215, which voters passed in 1996, authorizes medical marijuana. The Medical Marijuana Program, passed by the Legislature in 2003, tried to provide guidelines for its use and distribution.
But as California Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvin R. Baxter wrote in the court's recent ruling that upheld local government bans of medical marijuana dispensaries, the current laws "do not establish a comprehensive state system of legalized medical marijuana."
The recently introduced legislation recognizes that.
The biggest issue – of the many – is how medical marijuana is cultivated, regulated, and gets into the hands of those authorized to use it.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law. And the feds for years kept a distance from intervening in California's medical marijuana legalization, until October of 2011.
That's when the U.S. Attorneys in the state said they had identified several for-profit, grow-and-sell outlets that were operating with no conformity to the kind of non-profit, small-cultivation collectives that California law authorizes.
Federal prosecutors said Aaron Sandusky of Rancho Cucamonga used the "perceived ambiguity" of California's medical marijuana laws to create an illegal, for-profit operation that included a cultivation warehouse in Ontario and G3 Holistic dispensaries in Moreno Valley, Upland and Colton He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January on his conviction of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute hundreds of pounds of marijuana.
And another issue – who said anything about dispensaries in the first place?
In the Riverside-orginated California Supreme Court case that upheld local government bans on medical marijuana stores, dispensary owners argued they were protected by California's medical marijuana laws.
But proponents of the local bans argued the owners wanted protection for something that is not mentioned in the existing laws: Brick-and-mortar storefronts for selling medical marijuana.
Steinberg's and Ammiano's bills appear to be dealing with those issues, by describing what a dispensary is, setting up regulations for how they operate as a non-profit business, and making rules about how they obtain their product.
The proposed laws might answer the chief problem the feds have with medical marijuana in California, provide the uniformity that Associate Justice Baxter said was lacking, and offer protection for consumers as well.
Neither will affect the California Supreme Court ruling that allows local governments to ban dispensaries.
News Hawk- Truth Seeker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: pe.com
Author: Richard K. De Atley
Website: MEDICAL MARIJUANA: Another try at a legislative cure : Watchdog Blog
