Search Results: lawsuits filed (33)

Photo: Shay Sowden/LAist

​Medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) responded Tuesday to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s latest effort to shut down registered dispensaries by threatening to intervene in the lawsuits the city filed recently against raided collectives Organica and Holistic Caregivers.

According to ASA, Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has taken preemptive enforcement action before dispensaries have a chance to comply with the recently adopted regulatory ordinance, which took more than two years to write and pass.
“It’s clear that the City Attorney is attempting to intimidate and close dispensaries before the Los Angeles ordinance even goes into effect,” said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford.

Artwork: Jim Wheeler
Safe access to marijuana remains a distant dream to many patients — even in states which have legalized medical use

​One by one, the lights are winking out. In city after city, town after town, in states where medical marijuana is now legal, patients who had dared hope they would at last have safe access to the medicine recommended by their doctors are having those hopes dashed.
The problem? Political cowardice and the panicked reaction of the status quo.
Every week brings more news of freaked out city councils and county boards of supervisors who desperately want to appear to be “doing something” — anything — about the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries.
This phenomenon is so far mostly confined to California and to a lesser extent Colorado, but it’s unfortunately also starting to happen in Michigan, Montana and even Maine — where voters specifically approved dispensaries in November.
Rather than showing true leadership by showing genuine concern for patients and communities, too many local government officials are going for the easy, knee-jerk reaction. The level of disregard for the intentions of the voters — who clearly expressed their will by legalizing medical marijuana — is breathtaking.

C3 Collective
A sample of the wares at Walnut Creek’s C3 Collective.

​Five hundred bucks a day adds up fast. Brian Hyman, director of the only medical marijuana dispensary in Walnut Creek, California, can tell you that.

Hyman’s dispensary, the C3 Collective, has been fined $500 a day by Walnut Creek since shortly after opening in June.
As people discover all the time, once you’re in city government’s crosshairs, they can find something to for which to harass you. In C3’s case, the official reasons have been things like violation of a general nuisance clause in the city code that prohibits any organization that violates federal law.
Sounds reasonable enough, until you remember that federal law recognizes no such thing as medical marijuana. Seems even if the Obama Administration is reluctant to enforce federal marijuana laws, Walnut Creek isn’t willing to back down.