Last week, the Council finally discussed my memo and voted to have staff come back with a draft ordinance for final review regarding medical cannabis. Currently, 14 states have legalized cannabis for medical purposes and 14 other states are considering legislation now. I attached a memo from the US attorney general saying that the federal government will recognize state laws regarding legalization of medical cannabis and additionally, I provided an 11-page document from State Attorney General Jerry Brown that provides guidelines to municipalities on implementing ordinances that regulate medical cannabis collectives/cooperatives.
Even if San Jose chose not to adopt an ordinance, people have the legal right to cultivate and form marijuana collectives for medical purposes under Prop 215 today.
Since my memo was heard at the Rules Committee meeting last October, I have spoken with many San Jose residents. Their comments have commonalities that could be broken into four different areas.
One viewpoint from a handful of residents is that cannabis is a terrible drug that ruins people’s lives, and all efforts should be into keeping it illegal even for those that have painful afflictions like AIDS, cancer and MS. Some felt that under no circumstances should anyone use cannabis to numb the pain since we have prescription drugs for that. Their views are strong and are often not open to discussion, as in the case of a gentleman who held this view who hung up when I called him after receiving his email.
I understand that people may have experienced a friend or family member that abused illegal drugs or they are morally opposed to their use; however they do not seem to have a problem with alcohol or tobacco since they are legal. These folks also did not find a problem with prescription drugs. In the cases of alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs we know that some people abuse them and this abuse comes at great cost to themselves, family and law enforcement.
Others called with personal stories of family or friends who had died of a painful disease years ago. They were told by a doctor at that time to get some marijuana and so they went out and purchased marijuana from a drug dealer for their ill family member. One 80-year-old resident told me that his family bought marijuana for his brother 25 years ago. He said the last 10 months of his brother’s life was good because of cannabis and his brother only went to the hospital just a few hours before he finally died of cancer.
Another group of residents were supportive of medical cannabis or indifferent but they did not want to see these facilities adjacent to residential areas and felt that there should be some regulation in addition to zoning. My direction in my memo was to place the dispensaries in industrial areas which are away from residential neighborhoods, but Council gave planning staff some leeway for the June ordinance that might include medical offices or areas zoned commercial, but definitely away from adjacent residential. Alcohol is distributed in nearly 1,300 places in San Jose and over time seem to just blend in with the rest of our commercial business.
As far as regulation, one that I am keen on is open book accounting of these collectives that allows for financial audits as needed.
Others were in favor of legalization of cannabis for any purpose. They felt that our country had tried prohibition of alcohol from 1920-1933 and was unsuccessful. The only thing prohibition did from their view was to make organized crime wealthy and create health issues with moonshine. They had strong feelings that people will do as they wish and the wars on drugs has been unsuccessful which has only filled the pockets of organized crime. Therefore, they wanted legalization and taxation like alcohol.
They felt prison cells should be reserved for the those committing violent crimes and not possession of marijuana. A mother told me about her 20-year-old son in college, and said that it is easier for him to get marijuana then it is alcohol, since alcohol is regulated.
Which ever viewpoint, issues like this stir up interest in local government. Which viewpoint do you hold?
I am not sold on legalization of marijuana or medical marijuana for a number of reason.
(Full disclosure: I have never used marijuana.)
1. I believe marijuana is addictive. Pointy heads like to make that argument that it is not physically addictive or chemically addictive like alcohol. But drug counselors and other authorities often acknowledge that it can be psychologically addictive.
My own observation is that there are people who swear that they are not addicted to pot and can quit anytime, and people who claim that they have to have their pot everyday “to relax”.
Bottom line: marijuana is addictive for some people, and there is no way of knowing before the fact who is going to become addicted.
2. The government of a free society should IN NO WAY be in the business of encouraging people to use addictive substances, subsidizing the use of addictive substances, or benefiting from taxes collected on addictive substances.
When the government benefits financially or electorally by fostering addictions among the population, the whole concept of a popularly governed Constitutional republic ceases to matter.
3. Powerful drugs, including psycho-active drugs are regulated by the government because of their potential for human and societal damage in many different dimensions. Alcohol is regulated by the federal ATF as well as by state regulators; other drugs are regulated by the Food and Drug Adminsitration.
The reason that drugs are regulated, in my mind, is that psycho-active drugs have the capability of interfering with or suppressing people’s ability to make rational risk/reward assessments of the consequences of drug use. In other words, if a drug makes a person “feel good”, it might also make a person oblivious to the physical, social, or psychological damage he may be doing to himself, his family, or society.
Libertarian that I am, I believe that this is one of the circumstances where government can and should provide adult supervision to ensure the health and welfare of society.
If there is rationale for government regulation of psycho-active drugs, AND there are existing government regulatory institutions charged with regulatory responsibilities, what the hell are local politicians doing to try to circumvent or undermine these regulations? What they SHOULD be doing is arguing for modification to the FDA regulations or guidlines, and NOT making sneaky, populist end runs.
4. Pharmacology and medical science is advanced to the point that medical experts know WHICH chemical components of marijuana provide therapeutic benefit.
If the benefit is real and provides a rational cost/benefit solution, then those chemical components can be extracted or synthesized, and distributed as prescription medications exactly as is done by hundreds of other controlled substances.
The notion that there is something especially medically beneficial about drug cartel grown, unassayed, non-quality-controlled, mostly-likely-adulterated “natural” marijuana is preposterous.
5. With so much mythology, and so many unknowns about marijuana and psycho-active drugs, it is irresponsible to the point of child endangerment for any adult to encourage children to experiment with or use marijuana.
If the government legalizes marijuana, even for bogus “medicinal” usage, they are sending the message to kids that marijuana is really OK “for adults”. The predictable message that kids will take from this, as shown be the usage patterns for tobacco and alcohol, is that “using marijuana will make me an adult”.
Wrong message. Stupid message. Dangerous message. Destructive message.
As far as I am concerned, the case for legalizing marijuana has not been made.
Marijuana, at a minimum, is an obnoxious source of second hand smoke, and in the worst case is a dangerous toxic substance for people and for society.
A lot of words with no substance, just personal opinion which has no basis in reality.
Anyway, like it or not, pot is not physically addictive. Never has been. Never will be.
Also, “The government of a free society should IN NO WAY be in the business” of telling an adult what they can or cannot do to their own bodies.
Trying to equate medical marijuana use with encouraging children to smoke pot is the stupidest of the stupid in scare tactics.
In case you have not noticed, pot is already de facto legalized. You can easily buy it anywhere in the country, and it has been this way for the last 40 years. The current drug laws are the cause of most drug related problems in the country, not the drugs themselves.
> just personal opinion which has no basis in reality.
Of course it’s personal opinion. This is an opinion forum. Duh.
> Anyway, like it or not, pot is not physically addictive. Never has been. Never will be.
You don’t know that. And worse, you don’t know that you don’t know.
> Also, “The government of a free society should IN NO WAY be in the business” of telling an adult what they can or cannot do to their own bodies.
True. But ONLY in a fully Libertarian society where everyone agrees with letting incoherent drug addicts lie in the gutter and rot.
Sadly, America is now a socialist society, and Obamacare will not tolerate irresponsible people laying in the gutter and rotting, but will insist on taxing everyone to provide the slobs with “healthcare”.
> Trying to equate medical marijuana use with encouraging children to smoke pot is the stupidest of the stupid in scare tactics.
Nope. It’s very smart and recognizes reality. Only the hopelessly pot addled want to live in their drug fog and pretend that their behaviors have no effect on children.
> The current drug laws are the cause of most drug related problems in the country, not the drugs themselves.
Switzerland tried to “needle park” to allow drug users to use drugs freely. It was a flaming disaster. They shut it down.
“The Swiss deal with drug users much as the U.S. and other countries do—prisons, drug-free residential treatment programs, oral methadone, etc.—but they also know that these approaches are not enough. They first tried establishing a “Needle Park” in Zurich, an open drug scene where people could use drugs without being arrested. Most Zurichers, including the police, initially regarded the congregation of illicit drug injectors in one place as preferable to scattering them throughout the city. But the scene grew unmanageable, and city officials closed it down in February 1992. A second attempt faced similar problems and was shut down in March 1995”
I am not sure that anything that you smoke is entirely good for you. Ingesting smoke of any kind has got to be bad for one’s lungs.
On the other hand, I don’t think that overall it’s as bad for you as excessive use of alcohol, which is a far greater problem than marijuana.
I am also not sure whether to characterize medical marijuana as a sham or a scam. It seems to me that lots of folks getting it at the “co-ops” have merely found a sympathetic M.D. to help them feed their heads. There are a couple of hundred “dispensaries” in L.A. alone. Can that many people in L.A. have cancer or intractable pain that cannot be relieved by anything else?
Bottom line: let’s regulate its use better and tax the hell out of it. If it’s completely legalized, you can put a high tax on it and it’ll still be way cheaper than illegal street weed. And let’s let everyone out of jail or prison who is there for simple possession.
Pierluigi,
I fall into the view of taxing and regulating it. Alcohol, Pharmaceutical and Tobacco are huge industries therefore they will make sure they are allowed and expand. If some people looking to relax consumed marijuana instead of alcohol that would be a good thing. Alcohol is prevalent in our society and we admire the “rat pack” for all their consumption of alcohol but look the other way when it comes to the domestic violence.
On addiction I will admit that I drink coffee every morning and if I do not I am grumpy and even get headaches. Some say that caffeine has negative health consequences but since coffee is such a big industry I don’t see any changes coming via government.
The only reason politicians want legalized marijuana is to raise more taxes to support their ridiculous spending problem.
Let’s see how everyone’s position holds up if there’s no taxes associated. The debate would be entirely different.
Seems like government collect lots of taxes from alcohol and tobacco.
And look how they spend it. They even spend more than they collect. Weird huh?
Maybe Californians are not drinking and smoking enough?
Using cannabis for medical purposes is fine with me however I don’t think it should shunned. Liquor stores are pretty common and I do not think medical cannabis place would cause any harm in a traditional commercial outdoor shopping center.
Potheads are a sad wretched lot. While some know how to make money and some are quite smart, all (in my experience0 are unreliable people. Marijuana use can be detected in the bloodstream or urine up to 2 months after use. This persistance indicates that some degree of impairment remains for that length of time while alcohol leaves the body and is undetectible in a very short amount of time. This will make setting a standard for driving under the influence of pot difficult to achieve.
This said, I am sympathetic to the few individuals for whom pot is a better pain treatment than other available narcotics. They should be able to obtain it legally somewhere in the city or county but does not mean that we need more than one location. I would suggest that this location be near a particularly nice upper middle class neighborhood. May I suggest my own Willow Glen neighborhood. My reason for this is that WG has a sufficient number of busy bodies who will pester the police and council member Oliverio to make sure that it is kept under control. Otherwise, we will have the mess that cause LA and even SF to restrict the number of clubs.
If cannabis is being allowed because it is a medicine, why would we tax it? Isn’t that inhumane treatment of the ill? The reason that you want to tax it is because we all know that most of the users are dopers and you want to treat it as a taxed vice. The problem is that we don’t fully know the social, medical and criminal price we will pay for this in the future. Consequently, this is just one more case of irresponsible government taking the advantage now and kicking the cost down the line to a time when they are out of office.
Really, what else could I expect from a person who has thus evaded the normal adult responsibilities. Delayed maturity. Which come to think of it, has always seemed to me to afflict the pot smokers that I’ve known.
The functioning alcoholic is the alcoholic who can hold down a job, pursue a career or care for children while continuing his or her alcoholism. Some can do these things successfully, but how well do they handle the other functions in living? How do they function in the role of spouse, parent, driver, financial manager and community volunteer? His/Her job or profession isn’t his only function in life.
Two famous entertainers come to mind, a very popular late-night TV host and a famous singer-entertainer: both were alcoholics, but both were also known to be wife beaters. We are all aware of other public examples: the successful politician charged with impaired driving, the wealthy businessman who abandons his family, claiming poverty.
Multiply the public examples of alcohol abuse and dysfunction by a thousand, and you get a picture of the neglect, abuse, lies and cover-up that are probably out there among the population of so-called functioning alcoholics: the alcoholic farmer who sexually abuses his young daughters, the alcoholic teacher who amasses a large collection of child porn, the mother whose children die in a house fire because she had passed out while drinking.
Consider the successful professional who pours himself a drink as soon as he gets home. Since he won’t drink and drive, he never attends his children’s games or takes them camping. Is he “functioning?”
What it comes down to is this: to function is to function in life, not just in one part of life. Ask yourself if you know any alcoholics who not only do their jobs, but are also truly functional in life. I can’t think of any, but there may be a few. However, can they measure up to the second criterion of human function, to be discussed in Part Two?
What is your experience with functioning alcoholics? Leave your comments below.
Someone should really pass a constitutional amendment making alcohol illegal. I mean, it doesn’t have ANY medical benefits!
> Really, what else could I expect from a person who has thus evaded the normal adult responsibilities. Delayed maturity. Which come to think of it, has always seemed to me to afflict the pot smokers that I’ve known.
Good point!
I can’t say I’ve seen any science based evidence on this particular point, but more than a few pot smokers I’ve known seem to be children in adult’s bodies.
I agree with your thought that taxing the heck out of a drug for cancer patients seems pretty cruel. We don’t do that with other drugs. Unfortunately, we know that many of the patients of the cannibas clubs are not getting it for medical reasons. I know several 20 something year olds with medicinal cannibas cards which they got for headaches. If medicinal marijuana works for truly sick patients who can’t afford some huge tax on their drug, why can’t it be dispensed at a pharmacy? I don’t see Ambien or Prozac clubs popping up.
I don’t see why pot has to be treated differently than any other arguably useful drug.
The Food and Drug Administration has a well-defined process for drug manufacturers to submit drug candidates to the FDA for review, scientific validation, clinical trials, and—if every thing checks out—approval for marketing.
If someone thinks there is a cost/benefit case to be made for medical marijuana, let them submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA, perform the necessary scientific validation, demonstrate safety and efficacy through clinical trials, and then request a license to market it.
No need to re-invent the wheel. No need to whip up populist mobs to demand snake oil from the snake oil salesmen. No need for divisive ballot propositions that appeal to fear, ignorance, and greed.
Just DO THE PROCESS that was put in place EXACTLY for the purpose of bringing SAFE and EFFECTIVE drugs to the market.
And if we’re NOT going to do the process, then shut down the FDA.
I think your point is good in theory. Going through the FDA is the correct way to introduce marijuana as medicine. However, the FDA is a federal entity, and the federal government classifies pot as a Schedule I drug on par with heroin and LSD. It’s legally prevented from approving pot for medical use.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/05/doctor.danger/index.html?hpt=C1
this came out today.
If cannabis should be outright legalized or not seems moot at this point. The law in California seems to be that medical cannabis is legal, non-medical it is illegal.
What bothers me is that these “medical cannabis” facilities seem to not even try to hide that they are really also for recreational use (against the law). For example one of the 3 places nearest me is called “Amsterdam’s Garden”, many others have similar colorful names. Read the yelp reviews for these places, the posts from customers put the word “medical” in quotes, and call the places “clubs”. http://tinyurl.com/ykx9ba4 The medicines have names like “plane wreck” and “green crack”. http://www.amsterdamsgarden.com/Menu.html
It seems to be just a joke that these are really medical-only places—which is technically against the law, right ?
Again, I’m not saying I’m against outright legalization, but at this time the “medical” aspect of this seems to be joke at many of these establishments.
So in conclusion, I propose as much as possible San Jose:
1) enforce the law, and make sure these places are following the existing law of California. Audits, undercover clients, etc.
2) tax them at least enough to pay for the enforcement necessary.
3) zone them to appropriate areas, especially such that they do not effect existing residents property values.
Chris Smith,
The direction given by the Council to staff is to do items 1-3 as you listed. Prior to my memo there was no intention to determine proper zoning or regulate.
Pierluigi
Councilmember,
Pot clubs a appearing all over your district including in residential neighborhoods. It is not an exageration to say that I see a new one every week within a 5 mile radius. All I’m getting from you heere is that you see a way for the city to cash in. Regardless of your feeling about the “need” for access to marijuana for cancer patients, having quasi-legal, drug dealers popping up all over your district is your responsibility. What are you doing about it. People are talking and many are very unhappy.
How do we get through to you?
WG Father,
You are correct. San Jose does not have an ordinance for medical cannabis collectives today, so this is why they are popping up in areas we might not want them to be. No ordinance is what led to the situation in LA that had nearly 1,000. The Council on March 30th moved my memo to create an ordinance to limit the number, limit the location and regulate these facilities finally. Council will vote on these restrictions in June. Happy to come to your home and explain in person. Saturday morning work for you?
Pierluigi
You can get through to the Narcotics / Covert Investigations Unit at 277-4115.
Pier,
Who is going to oversee these new regulations laws put in place by the city? Please don’t our ever-shrinking police department or code enforcement.
According to the police chief the SJPD is currently at the same staffing level as it was in 1996 and you want to take away 150 more officers by June of this year. I think it is stupid to create more bureaucracy. Pot is plentiful and can easily be found by those who need it. Stick to the core services. Not doing so is what got us in our present position.
Jason Smith,
All regulation and therefore city staff time would be covered by the the medical cannabis collectives paying fees as outlined in my memo. Oakland for example charges $30K in fees for each collective to cover staff time. The fees do not include the 1.8% business tax that Oakland voters passed by 80% on these facilities that bring in revenue for their general fund nor does it include the sales tax revenues.
Pierluigi
Pierluigi,
Assuming pot has a medical purpose, don’t you think it is wrong to have some huge tax placed on it, as most of these patients are in dire financial situation? Also, what is your point in addressing me as Jason Smith? Do you make an issue out of last names with everyone, or just those that disagree with you?
Jason,
Medicinal Cannabis Collectives under State law must be non-profit. Since there is no profit then there is revenue for local government to take without raising the cost of the medical cannabis for collective members. In lieu of tax a successful collective takes the extra money and pays the collective employees more, provides free health services and buys thicker carpet. The average hourly pay at Harborside Collective in Oakland is $43 a hour with a 1.8% city tax which is as good as the now defunct Nummi plant. San Jose would be doing what is already being done in California and Colorado in regards to taxes.
As far as last names I always appreciate bloggers who are willing to say who they are like, JohnMichael O’Connor, Kathleen Flynn, Christian Hemmingway, Tina Morill, Blair Whitney, Don Gagliardi, Ed Rast, Ken Heridia, Tony Chen, Greg Howe to name a few. They do not always agree with me but that is OK.
Have a good day Jason.
Pierluigi
Pierluigi….you can add me to the list of those that post using a first and last name. We all know it is not possible to use another person’s name and post it to a comment. Nobody would do such a thing, everybody on the internet is honest and can be trusted not to do anything malicious. Even my good friend, George Washington, is sitting here in agreement with me. I hope you appreciate me too.
Here is a short video on a local collective…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SclmOWG1ZA&feature=player_embedded
These hippy-dippy characters at Harborside with their chinbeards and their ponytails sound SO sincere as they describe themselves as generous, selfless saints. But they’re a bunch of parasitic liars. Just observe the “patients” lined up at the counter for their “medicinal” marijuana. Obviously a buncha degenerate lowlife potheads
Face it, Pierluigi. This is ALL about revenue. It’s pathetic when an agency of the Government gets so desparate for revenue that it’ll cash in on (and encourage) the vices of an indolent, lazy group of citizens.
Shame on the City. Shame on you!
Please don’t be harshin’ on Pier’s mellow.
I think the new taxes from this will solve a lot of the city’s revenue problems. Kinda like how the state lottery helped Cali education be all it can be.
And think of all the green jobs Pier’s creating for the young, up and coming, soon-to-be dopers who’ll have had any ambition and drive nipped in the bud (so to speak) by Pier’s awesomely awesome all dope all the time program.
The only potential buzzkill? Ken Yeager. Has anyone checked to see if these pot clubs are located in unincorporated areas? I don’t think I have to tell anyone around here how Ken Yeager feels about smoking in unincorporated areas!
My neighbor, who is of the hemp persuasion, tells me that once Pier’s hemp friendly initiative passes McDonalds will soon be offering McBongs in Happy Meals. Anyone know if this is true? My neighbor’s stoned out of his mind most of the time so I thought I’d doublecheck here first.
John Galt,
As one of the “hippy dippy characters” at Harborside, I encourage you to come to either our Oakland or San Jose location for a tour. I am employed at the San Jose location, and would love to discuss our collective with a fellow Ayn Rand fan.
As an injured veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I returned to civilian life struggling with chronic pain and anxiety. Several medications were prescribed to me by the local VA hospital, but none were effective at combating the pain.
I turned to cannabis, and strangely enough, Harborside was the first collective I went to. A year later, I’m employed full time with them ensuring other qualified patients receive safe medical cannabis. My pain is well managed, I am the father of two wonderful kids, and I volunteer my spare time working with wounded veteran advocacy organizations.
An indolent lazy citizen? Hardly. I’ve worked closely with Americans for Safe Access and the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Law to ensure our continued existence here in San Jose.
I’m a bit disappointed that an adherent of Objectivism would abandon reason and instead judge medical cannabis solely on appearances. Our not-for-profit collective returns any revenue over operational costs to patient services. These services range from acupuncture to chiropractic therapy. We even offer free medicine to patients of low income.
“I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,
nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.”
Jason I.
HHCSJ
As long as these medical dispensaries continue to charge black market prices for “medical marijuana” (and let’s face it, a lot of these “patients” just like to get high, and know some pliant doctors), then I say to Hell with them! What is the point of having marijuana be legal, yet still having to pay $45-60 for an eighth?!? If I’m going to be paying black market prices, I’ll just keep buying it off the black market, thanks anyway.
All this medical marijuana talk reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies, and Granny’s Rheumatiz medicine.
In retrospect, after living so many years with my Grandma, also known as Granny, I think she had a real problem with crack. We should have seen it earlier; Grandpa Jed Clampett and my sister, later to become my wife, Elly May Clampett. Once we got to Hollywood, crack was so easy to get, Hollywood may have just as well legalized and taxed it. Our banker was Granny’s pimp, setting her up for late night dates with some of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors. This is when her arthritis, particularly in her hips, became very bad, and when she made the switch to medicinal marijuana. They made a special blend just for her called Granny’s Green. I would like to specially thank the Hollywood mayor, Cannibas Oliverio, for making this possible.
Is this another Beverly Hillbillies reference? Boy, are you old.