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As the debate over pot shops rages in the Coachella Valley and elsewhere, a study released Wednesday by UCLA researchers found no link between medical marijuana dispensaries and neighborhood crime.
The study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, analyzed 2009 crime rates in Sacramento neighborhoods. It considered their population densities, unemployment and poverty rates, vacant homes, and other factors linked to violent and property crime rates.
"Once you adjust for those, dispensaries are not related to crime," said UCLA associate professor Bridget Freisthler, the study's coauthor.
The study hopes to provide some much-lacking data to the debate over marijuana dispensaries and crime. "There's not a lot of empirical research" out there, said Freisthler, whose studies focus on social welfare.
However, Freisthler stressed the study only represents a snapshot in time from 2009. It doesn't consider whether dispensaries increase or decrease crime over time. She and her colleagues are working on a longer, five-year study designed to answer that question.
"It is just a first step ... to inform the debate," Freisthler said Wednesday.
She also hopes to look at whether some dispensaries' enhanced security – such as surveillance cameras and guards – actually help keep crime rates down.
Palm Springs is the only Coachella Valley city to allow a limited number of dispensaries, but that hasn't stopped dozens of unpermitted facilities from sprouting across the region in recent years.
The Palm Springs Police Department did not respond to queries Wednesday on whether they've seen much – or any – crime related to dispensaries in the city.
At a 2009 meeting in which the City Council voted to draft its medical pot ordinance, then-Palm Springs police Chief David Dominguez said there had been two documented crimes related to the six unlicensed collectives operating in the city at the time.
On Wednesday, Bob Torre, chief financial officer for one of Palm Springs' three permitted dispensaries, Organic Solutions of the Desert, said he believed crime around local pot shops isn't a problem.
"I don't think there is an issue of crime. I don't see it as being a target of crime. I don't know where people are getting this about the criminal access," Torre said.
Organic Solutions uses 42 security cameras in and around its building near the corner of Ramon Road and Gene Autry Trail for 24-hour surveillance, Torre said.
The closest thing they've had to a break-in during their year in business so far was an attempted theft of an expensive piece of electrical equipment left outside overnight, Torre added. The item was too big to move, but the dispensary's cameras caught the attempt on tape, he said.
The industrial area in which Organic Solutions of the Desert operates also is home to a cluster of unlicensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
Freisthler is careful to note the UCLA study's limits.
"We're clear about what our study tells us and what it doesn't," she said Wednesday.
Last year, the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation analyzed crime rates around the huge number of pot stores and clubs in Los Angeles County and similarly found no link between dispensaries and crime.
However, the study generated considerable scrutiny and criticism, and RAND retracted the report less than a month after its publication.
A key flaw, its detractors pointed out, was that RAND assumed all the dispensaries required to close under an L.A. ordinance shut their doors exactly on June 7, 2010.
Freisthler said the UCLA study was peer-reviewed around the time the RAND study was released, and she's confident it will withstand scrutiny because it relies on different methodology and answers a narrower question.
So far, there's been no pushback from critics – but "there's still time," she said Wednesday.
News Hawk- TruthSeekr420 420 MAGAZINE
Source: mydesert.com
Author: Marcel Honore
Contact: Feedback | The Desert Sun | MyDesert.com
Website: Study: Medical marijuana dispensaries not linked to crime | The Desert Sun | MyDesert.com
The study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, analyzed 2009 crime rates in Sacramento neighborhoods. It considered their population densities, unemployment and poverty rates, vacant homes, and other factors linked to violent and property crime rates.
"Once you adjust for those, dispensaries are not related to crime," said UCLA associate professor Bridget Freisthler, the study's coauthor.
The study hopes to provide some much-lacking data to the debate over marijuana dispensaries and crime. "There's not a lot of empirical research" out there, said Freisthler, whose studies focus on social welfare.
However, Freisthler stressed the study only represents a snapshot in time from 2009. It doesn't consider whether dispensaries increase or decrease crime over time. She and her colleagues are working on a longer, five-year study designed to answer that question.
"It is just a first step ... to inform the debate," Freisthler said Wednesday.
She also hopes to look at whether some dispensaries' enhanced security – such as surveillance cameras and guards – actually help keep crime rates down.
Palm Springs is the only Coachella Valley city to allow a limited number of dispensaries, but that hasn't stopped dozens of unpermitted facilities from sprouting across the region in recent years.
The Palm Springs Police Department did not respond to queries Wednesday on whether they've seen much – or any – crime related to dispensaries in the city.
At a 2009 meeting in which the City Council voted to draft its medical pot ordinance, then-Palm Springs police Chief David Dominguez said there had been two documented crimes related to the six unlicensed collectives operating in the city at the time.
On Wednesday, Bob Torre, chief financial officer for one of Palm Springs' three permitted dispensaries, Organic Solutions of the Desert, said he believed crime around local pot shops isn't a problem.
"I don't think there is an issue of crime. I don't see it as being a target of crime. I don't know where people are getting this about the criminal access," Torre said.
Organic Solutions uses 42 security cameras in and around its building near the corner of Ramon Road and Gene Autry Trail for 24-hour surveillance, Torre said.
The closest thing they've had to a break-in during their year in business so far was an attempted theft of an expensive piece of electrical equipment left outside overnight, Torre added. The item was too big to move, but the dispensary's cameras caught the attempt on tape, he said.
The industrial area in which Organic Solutions of the Desert operates also is home to a cluster of unlicensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
Freisthler is careful to note the UCLA study's limits.
"We're clear about what our study tells us and what it doesn't," she said Wednesday.
Last year, the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation analyzed crime rates around the huge number of pot stores and clubs in Los Angeles County and similarly found no link between dispensaries and crime.
However, the study generated considerable scrutiny and criticism, and RAND retracted the report less than a month after its publication.
A key flaw, its detractors pointed out, was that RAND assumed all the dispensaries required to close under an L.A. ordinance shut their doors exactly on June 7, 2010.
Freisthler said the UCLA study was peer-reviewed around the time the RAND study was released, and she's confident it will withstand scrutiny because it relies on different methodology and answers a narrower question.
So far, there's been no pushback from critics – but "there's still time," she said Wednesday.
News Hawk- TruthSeekr420 420 MAGAZINE
Source: mydesert.com
Author: Marcel Honore
Contact: Feedback | The Desert Sun | MyDesert.com
Website: Study: Medical marijuana dispensaries not linked to crime | The Desert Sun | MyDesert.com
