Energized by a White House memo that allows Colorado and Washington to tax and regulate legal pot, California lawmakers are making a last-ditch effort this week to toughen the state’s medical marijuana regulations and hopefully end the almost two year-long federal crackdown on state-legal medi-pot business.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) gutted and amended a bill (AB 604) Friday so that it would help clarify California’s opaque medical marijuana rules.
The bill would create a new regulatory agency under the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to oversee the industry, a mandatory commercial registration program, clearer rules for medical recommendations, expanded resources for law enforcement and better specifications for localities looking to zone and tax the trade. Cities would still be able to ban dispensaries from their jurisdictions.
The move comes after the Justice Department’s announcement Aug. 29 that it would allow states to attempt regulating the drug. Some believe tightening rules in California could stop the federal crackdown that has dogged even the most compliant medical marijuana businesses in the state.
A spokesperson for Rep. Tom Ammiano’s office said the bill is a melding of prior efforts by Rep. Ammiano and co-sponsor Sen. pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. AB 604 answers the years-long, statewide outcry for clearer pot regulations. The bill faces tough odds in the final four days of the legislative session, but there is the possibility California’s legislature could get this done, the spokesperson said.
Federal officials raided Oakland cannabis business Oaksterdam in April 2012 (by David Downs)
Californians legalized medical marijuana in 1996, and expanded protections to collectives and cooperatives of patients in 2003. In 2008, the White House said it would respect state marijuana laws, which led to a boom in the billion-dollar California industry, and a federal crackdown beginning October 2011. Federal prosecutors shut down hundreds of dispensaries in the state, included several with permits from the City of San Francisco. The cities of Oakland and Berkeley are suing the Justice Dept to prevent the closures of Harborside Health Center and Berkeley Patients Group.
Marijuana policy reform advocates are lauding AB 604. California representatives of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of police, judges, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials opposed to the war on drugs hailed the move, calling the bill a positive step forward for both law enforcement and the medical marijuana community.
“This is huge,” said former sheriff’s deputy and LEAP speaker Nate Bradley of Sacramento. “This is exactly what law enforcement officials on the ground have been asking for. The big thing we’re trying to remove is the ambiguity in the law. I think it does have a chance.”
“While law enforcement special interest groups have derailed bills like this before, this is something police on the ground want,” said LEAP speaker retired lieutenant commander Diane Goldstein in an emailed statement. “Just like anyone else, they try to do their jobs as professionally and effectively as possible. But right now, the lack of clear regulations on the medical marijuana industry means they can’t do that because they don’t know what’s legal and what isn’t.”
LEAP speaker and retired LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing said in a written statement that “if you look at where the federal government has cracked down on medical marijuana and where it hasn’t, the overriding theme is that those states with good regulation schemes have mostly been left alone. The Justice Department’s recent announcement that they’ll respect states’ marijuana policy as long as they’re smartly and strictly regulated is an unsubtle hint that California needs to get its act together with bills like this one.”
Watch this for a catalyst
AI
