Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

Marijuana stores are everywhere now in Los Angeles, flourishing under the new state law permitting medical use of marijuana.  They are found next to dry cleaners, restaurants and gas stations.  Advocates claim there are 800 of the stores.   Law enforcement claims the number over 1,000.  There are now more marijuana stores in Los Angeles than public schools, and everyone agrees the number is too high.  Los Angeles has more marijuana stores than any other.

These are medical marijuana dispensaries, and the police promise to crack down on the ones that make a profit.  The police are making noises about conducting raids, and some say this is an effort to influence the City Council to adopt stricter regulations.   It may be working.

The Council was pondering implementation of an ordinance that had been negotiated with medical marijuana supporters, but the city attorney, Carmen Trutanich, has persuaded the Council to adopt instead an his office has drawn up.  This proposed ordinance would provide for  dispensaries to have renewable permits, submit to criminal record checks, register the names of members with the police and operate on a nonprofit basis.  It would result in the closing of hundreds of the existing marijuana dispensaries.

The city attorney argued that state law permits the exchange of marijuana between growers and patients on a nonprofit and noncash basis only. Marijuana advocates say that interpretation would regulate dispensaries out of existence- against the will of voters who approved medical cannabis in 1996.

State laws that are increasingly allowing medicinal use. Thirteen states have laws supporting medical marijuana, and others are considering new legislation, yet federal laws that still treat marijuana as an illegal drug.  California is the testing ground, as police officials and marijuana advocates everywhere watch this experiment play out.

Criminal defense lawyers in California, accustomed to defending their clients from relatively clear  statutes prohibiting most of the cannabis family of plants, now have a lenient state law side-by-side with the standard prohibition of the federal law.  The medical use of marijuana is the only use permitted by this law, but California law is otherwise more lenient than many states.

Speaking at a training luncheon for regional narcotics officers, Los Angeles District Attorney said, “About 100 percent of dispensaries in Los Angeles County and the city are operating illegally… The time is right to deal with this problem.”  Mr. Cooley is up for re-election next year.   The training was titled “The Eradication of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County.   Cooley said state law does not allow dispensaries to be for-profit enterprises.

The Los Angeles city attorney, newly-elected Carmen Trutanich, claims dispensaries are prohibited from accepting cash even to reimburse growers for labor and supplies. He said that a recent California Supreme Court decision, People v. Mentch, banned all over-the-counter sales of marijuana.  Not surprisingly, other officials and marijuana advocates disagree with that interpretation.

Prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles so far have been limited to about twelve in the last year, Mr. Cooley’s spokeswoman said. But police are expecting to be called on soon to raid collectives.

As to the collectives, Don Duncan, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a leader in the medical marijuana movement, said marijuana collectives do need more regulation and there need to be fewer of them. He also said dispensaries should be nonprofit organizations, but that over-the-counter cash purchases should be permitted.  “I am under no illusions that everyone out there is following the rules,” Duncan said.  He runs his own dispensary in West Hollywood. “But just because you accept money to reimburse collectives does not mean you’re making profits.”

More than 300,000 doctors’ referrals for medical cannabis are on file, most of them from Los Angeles, according to Americans for Safe Access. The movement has had a string of successes in the Legislature and at the ballot box.  About 40 cities and counties have medical marijuana ordinances.

But last June, a federal judge sentenced Charles  Lynch, a dispensary owner north of Santa Barbara, to one year in prison for selling marijuana to a 17-year-old boy whose father had testified that they sought out medical marijuana for his son’s chronic pain. The mayor and the chief of police testified on behalf of Mr. Lynch, who was released on bail pending appeal.

And last month, San Diego police officers and sheriff’s deputies, along with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, raided 14 marijuana dispensaries and arrested 31 people. In an interview, Bonnie Dumanis, the district attorney for San Diego County, said that state laws governing medical marijuana were unclear and that the city had not yet instituted new regulations.  Ms. Dumanis said that she approved of medical marijuana clubs where patients grow and use their own marijuana, but that none of the 60 or so dispensaries in the county operated that way.  Marijuana supporters worry that San Diego may provide be the future for Los Angeles if raids there become a reality.

But many look to Harborside Health Center in Oakland as a model for how dispensaries could work.  “Our No. 1 task is to show that we are worthy of the public’s trust in asking to distribute medical cannabis in a safe and secure manner,” said Steve DeAngelo, the proprietor of Harborside, which has been in business for three years.

Harborside is one of four licensed dispensaries in Oakland run as nonprofit organizations. It is the largest, with 74 employees and revenues of about $20 million. Last summer, the Oakland City Council passed an ordinance to collect taxes from the sale of marijuana, a measure that Mr. DeAngelo supported.  Mr. DeAngelo designed Harborside to exude legitimacy, security and comfort. Visitors to the low-slung building are greeted by security guards who check the required physicians’ recommendations. Inside, the dispensary looks like a bank, except that the floor is covered with hemp carpeting and the eight tellers stand behind identical displays of marijuana and hashish.

There is a laboratory where technicians determine the potency of the marijuana and label it accordingly. (Harborside says it rejects 80 percent of the marijuana that arrives at its door for insufficient quality.) There is even a bank vault where the day’s cash is stored along with reserves of premium cannabis. An armored truck picks up deposits every evening.

City officials routinely audit the dispensary’s books, and “surplus” cash (no profits here) is rolled back into the center to pay for free counseling sessions and yoga for patients. “Oakland issued licenses and regulations, and Los Angeles did nothing and they are still unregulated,” Mr. DeAngelo said. “Cannabis is being distributed by inappropriate people.”

But even Oakland’s regulations fall short of city attorney Trutanich’s proposal that Los Angeles ban all cash sales.  Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for State Attorney General Jerry Brown, said that after Trutanich’s comments in Los Angeles, law enforcement officials and advocates from around the state had called seeking clarity on medical marijuana laws.

Jerry Brown has issued legal guidelines that allow for nonprofit sales of medical marijuana, she said. But, she added, with laws being interpreted differently, “the final answer will eventually come from the courts.”