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Tough New LA Medical Pot Rules Poised to Backfire |
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GUEST COMMENTARY
By Greg Campbell (Posted first at HuffingtonPost.com)
As politicians fumble for a way to clamp down on, snuff out or otherwise curtail the use of medical marijuana, the one thing that they have failed to consider is that the tougher the regulations they may pass, the more likely they are to spectacularly backfire.
As a breed, politicians seem genetically incapable of spotting trends, and the trend in medical marijuana goes far beyond how many dispensaries the market can bear. The ball is slowly rolling toward full legalization, and every scheme to limit access t o medical marijuana only adds to the momentum.
It might sound counterintuitive, but there is no one more motivated than a dope smoker when it comes to matters concerning cannabis, especially one with an entrepreneurial wind at her back. Politicians' knee-jerk reaction to a tidal change in constituents' attitudes toward marijuana has set fire to an entire category of people who are usually content to sit on the sofa watching Man vs. Wild reruns.
In Los Angeles, for example, there were four dispensaries in 2005. The moment the City Council started talking about restricting such businesses, the number climbed quickly to nearly 200, and when a ban on new dispensaries was announced in 2007, pot proponents lined up to file paperwork to beat the deadline. Today, there are between 800 and 1,000 dispensaries in LA, including applications for 58 businesses on one street. Backfire.
As it did elsewhere, the same thing happened in Fort Collins. There were three or four dispensaries late last year before the City Council decided to put a three-month halt on new ones so they could discuss how and if they should try to prevent their wild proliferation.
The weeks before the moratorium went into effect saw an avalanche of sales tax licenses so new dispensaries could wildly proliferate before the door slammed shut. There are now more than 100 dispensaries in Fort Collins that are either open for business or preparing to open. Backfire.
Back in LA, the City Council passed a new ordinance Tuesday (LA Times report) that limits the total number of pot clinics to about 150, forcing hundreds to go out of business.
Those allowed to remain open will be spread around the city based on a districting scheme and they would have to be 1,000 feet away from parks, schools, churches and other "sensitive areas."
This could backfire in two ways: Owners could ignore the ordinance and dare the cash-strapped city to spend the resources shutting them down, or they could seek an injunction preventing the city from enforcing it.
Either option would be an expensive and ultimately pointless wrangle. Even if the law were perfectly enforced, it would do nothing to reduce the amount of marijuana in a community like Venice, for example, where out of the 17 existing dispensaries only one would be allowed to remain.
No matter what the commodity, when you artificially reduce the legal supply, costs go up and black markets flourish.
More significantly, the ordinance could backfire in the form of a landslide vote for legalization if a citizen-initiated measure is put on the California ballot in November, as expected. Clueless politicians restricting access to voter-approved medical marijuana would be a strong rallying cry to get out the vote. (The rest of Greg Campbell analysis here.) [LINK]
(Greg Campbell is an award-winning journalist and author who has written for such publications s The Economist, WSJ Magazine and Paris Match. This article was posted first at HuffingtonPost.com) -cw
CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 8
Pub: Jan 29, 2010
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