County District Attorney Steve Cooley Friday declared that all medical marijuana dispensaries in his jurisdiction, including some 800 in the city of Los Angeles, are illegal and will be prosecuted.Regardless of what State law may be, pot dispensaries have never been legal. They've always been illegal under Federal law, and since Federal law supersedes State law, they're illegal anywhere in the country.
Voters in California legalized the medical use and sale of marijuana to patients with doctors' prescriptions, but Cooley and new City Attorney Carmen Trutanich say that a state Supreme Court opinion issued last year makes pretty much all dispensaries in the state illegal because they sell the drug over-the-counter instead of via highly regulated pharmacies.
Cooley said his office was already making legal moves against Culver City outlet Organica. The new stance toward dispensaries sent a chill through the medical marijuana community.
Outside Montebello Country Club, where the two officials made the anti-dispensary announcement, about 100 medical marijuana advocates protested.
"If this is the way it goes, we'll go underground again," said Barry Kramer, operator of Melrose Avenue dispensary California Patient Alliance. "There will be a lot more crime."
Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco and running for governor, wants to legalize pot in California. Of course, anything he does will still be illegal under current Federal law, but obeying the law hasn't been his strong suit.
4 comments:
"Medical marijuana" is an oxymoron. Marijuana has more carcinogens than tobacco, yet proponents want to legalize it and ban cigarettes.
Guess we'll just have to wait for all these chronic pot smokers to develop lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases. And who are they going to sue, government?
Yeah, right.
They may not sue the government, but they will expect them to pay for their treatment!
this is garbage. the da has no right to take away patients access to medicine. one can argue that marijuana is carcinogenic, but compared to the alternative perscription drugs you have to be kidding. i had to take over 12 vicidins a day due to my chronic back pain. i was dieing, my liver was slowly failing. thanks to medical marijuana i have my life and my health back. it's sad and disturbing the times we live in. i guess as long as heroine is legal (vicidin) and drug companys fund the da's office then marijuana patients will be scrutinized.
The ignorance of those who claim that marijuana consumption causes lung cancer is discouraging. Recent studies performed at UCLA have concluded that there is no correlation or causative relationship between marijuana consumption and lung cancer. It's rather ironic that those who are condemning medical marijuana are less intelligent than those who consume it.
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