It is a good thing that the number of medical marijuana dispensaries are increasing, this will help drive the price down and create a good market for those looking for safe access to cannabis.

So, it is with a smile, I relay this latest news to you.

From L.A.’s medical pot dispensary moratorium led to a boom instead

A ban meant to prevent new dispensaries from opening included a loophole that entrepreneurs have exploited. Where four years ago there were only a handful, now there may be 600 dispensaries.

With the amount of drug and alcohol (liquor) stores near schools and churches and parks, why should people be worried about actual medical facilities that serve sick patients with medicine? The demand for medical marijuana is great enough to support the amount of dispensaries opening and this shows the public support of medical marijuana!

Four years ago, when the Los Angeles City Council started to wrestle with how to control medical marijuana, there were just four known storefront dispensaries, one each in Hancock Park, Van Nuys, Rancho Park and Cheviot Hills.

Now, police say there are as many as 600. There may be more. No one really knows.

That exponential rise came despite a moratorium passed in 2007 that was supposed to prohibit new dispensaries from opening. An exception was made for 186 that were already in business and registered with the city.

“The city of L.A. has failed us on this issue,” said Michael Larsen, public safety director with the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council. “There’s a huge loophole. L.A. city’s not watching. L.A. city’s not enforcing.”

No other city in California has seen such uncontrolled growth in dispensaries. As signs featuring the easily recognized saw-toothed cannabis leaf multiplied on commercial strips, neighborhood activists like Larsen began to ask their council members why the city was not shutting down dispensaries that opened after the moratorium.

I wonder how many liquor stores L.A. has?

The moratorium includes a standard provision that allows dispensaries to appeal to the City Council for a hardship exemption to be allowed to operate. Some time last year, medical marijuana entrepreneurs discovered that the city attorney’s office was not prosecuting dispensaries that had filed hardship applications, saying the City Council needed to rule on them first. The council has not acted on any of the applications.

So far, 508 dispensaries have applied for exemptions.

It was months before anyone at City Hall realized what was happening.

Dispensaries have spread across the city. In some places, they are clustered two or three to a block, sometimes near schools, libraries and parks. When the council passed the moratorium, it did not include LAPD Chief William J. Bratton’s recommendation to keep dispensaries at least 1,000 feet from places that children frequent.

I can understand the concern for children being around medical marijuana facilities, but this is medicine folks. People are not sitting around smoking joints at these places, strict “no smoking” rules are in effect, and the idea that there are many cities and states with liquor stores and drug stores near schools is ironic, don’t you think? One serves a drunken public, the other serves sick patients seeking legal access to their medicine.

We can all agree regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries will most likely be necessary, however, we must remain logical and proceed with reason and compassion for the patients who need these dispensaries for safe access to their medicine. Many patients are too sick to even grow their own marijuana, much less drive across three hour traffic in Los Angeles to get to a dispensary. These are sick people and just like drug stores are in our neighborhoods offering our elderly their meds, we must accept that medical marijuana grow ops and dispensaries will undoubtedly become part of the American landscape.

Until we do, we can advance no further… it is time to look past “pot” and refer only to this plant, as “medicine.” Maybe then, and only then, will some stop and consider the pain and anguish many of us go through daily trying to self medicate with a natural and effective medicine, but risk being labeled and prosecuted as a criminal by doing so under current law.

If you can grow, you should be allow to. If you cannot, you should be allowed to drive to a nearest medical marijuana dispensary and purchase your “medicine.” laws already protect California drivers from prosecution of possession while driving. All patients should have access to their medicine, even if that medicine is marijuana.