Ban extended on new medicinal marijuana dispensaries
Ban extended on new medicinal marijuana dispensaries
By JOSHUA MOLINA ??June 3, 2009
With tears in his eyes, Gustavo Litvin got down on his knees and clasped his hands together in front of the Goleta City Council. His voice breaking up, Litvin made a plea.
??Please don??t take my life away,? said Litvin, 27, who has Crohn??s Disease. ??Don??t take my medicinal marijuana away. Please have some compassion.?
Breaking the hearts of several medicinal marijuana users in the audience, the Goleta City Council last night voted to extend a ban on new medicinal marijuana dispensaries. The vote essentially continued the moratorium on new dispensaries first approved by the council nearly two years ago. The moratorium was set to expire on Aug. 30. The council was fearful that if it did not take action and extend the ban that the city would be flooded with applications for dispensaries.
But not all hope is lost for medicinal marijuana users. The Goleta City Council also agreed to vote this fall on an ordinance allowing dispensaries, but with heavy regulations still to be determined. The city staff will analyze a new ordinance and bring it back to the council.
Since the 1996 passage of Proposition 215 in California, which legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, advocates on both sides of the issue have been locked in a debate over the ethics of using medical marijuana.
Because federal law still bans such a practice, local communities are conflicted about whether to allow dispensaries or ban them outright. With the legality in question, communities up and down the state are waging war over dispensaries one city at a time.
In Goleta, there is currently one legal commercial dispensary and one known illegal dispensary operating out of a home in a residential neighborhood. The ban would not affect the legal commercial dispensary from continuing to operate.
Medicinal marijuana advocates, many of whom wore T-shirts that said ??I am not a criminal,? talked emotional about how dispensary workers are often their saviors.
??These people mean a lot to me,? said Fred Kapp. ??They come to my house. I don??t want to have to go to the (San Fernando) Valley or 200 miles away to the north to get my meds. It??s not fair.?
On the whole, the Goleta City Council expressed compassion for the medicinal marijuana users.
??This law was passed by the people of the state of California,? said Councilman Michael Bennett. ??I am not going to stand in the way of the people??s vote. Whether I like it or don??t like it is immaterial.
Councilman Eric Onnen too said he was not convinced that a permanent ban was necessary. He said he needed to see evidence from law enforcement that the dispensaries were creating unusual amounts of crime reports in the area. He saw no such evidence and therefore came to the conclusion that the dispensaries are doing more good than harm.
??As a decision-maker, for me, if part of the rationale (for a ban) is increased crime, I don??t have enough data to make that decision,? Onnen said.
Onnen, the owner of Santa Barbara Airbus, said he is concerned about the medicinal marijuana patients.
??The concept of compassion does strike the heartstrings for me,? Onnen said.
Other advocates who spoke were upset that continuing the ban on new dispensaries would directly benefit the one commercial dispensary in business ?? essentially eliminating its competition in Goleta.
??Growing is really not an option,? said advocate Lisa Blanco. ??Without dispensaries, people who need to get it might have to do it illegally.?
Other speakers said it was unfair to go against the will of the people. Mark Russell, operator of Grass Roots Research in Goleta, stormed out of the meeting after last night??s vote, where he quickly lit a cigarette outside of the council chambers.
??I really think the regulations should be reconsidered,? he said. ??Fifty six percent of the voters supported it (Prop 215); that means more than half of the people in this room support medicinal marijuana.?
The most touching moment of the meeting belonged to Litvin, who revealed his difficult personal struggle after being diagnosed with Crohn??s Disease. He said he was a promising graduate student whose life was destroyed after his diagnosis.
The pain of living with the disease was excruciating, he said, and he lived much of his life drugged up on morphine. He turned to medicinal marijuana to ease his pain restore some of the quality to his life.
??If you know someone who??s been on morphine for 14 months that??s no way to live,? Litvin said. ??I would have committed suicide if I had to go on that way.?
Ban extended on new medicinal marijuana dispensaries
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galaxy
Ban extended on new medicinal marijuana dispensaries
By JOSHUA MOLINA ??June 3, 2009
With tears in his eyes, Gustavo Litvin got down on his knees and clasped his hands together in front of the Goleta City Council. His voice breaking up, Litvin made a plea.
??Please don??t take my life away,? said Litvin, 27, who has Crohn??s Disease. ??Don??t take my medicinal marijuana away. Please have some compassion.?
Breaking the hearts of several medicinal marijuana users in the audience, the Goleta City Council last night voted to extend a ban on new medicinal marijuana dispensaries. The vote essentially continued the moratorium on new dispensaries first approved by the council nearly two years ago. The moratorium was set to expire on Aug. 30. The council was fearful that if it did not take action and extend the ban that the city would be flooded with applications for dispensaries.
But not all hope is lost for medicinal marijuana users. The Goleta City Council also agreed to vote this fall on an ordinance allowing dispensaries, but with heavy regulations still to be determined. The city staff will analyze a new ordinance and bring it back to the council.
Since the 1996 passage of Proposition 215 in California, which legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, advocates on both sides of the issue have been locked in a debate over the ethics of using medical marijuana.
Because federal law still bans such a practice, local communities are conflicted about whether to allow dispensaries or ban them outright. With the legality in question, communities up and down the state are waging war over dispensaries one city at a time.
In Goleta, there is currently one legal commercial dispensary and one known illegal dispensary operating out of a home in a residential neighborhood. The ban would not affect the legal commercial dispensary from continuing to operate.
Medicinal marijuana advocates, many of whom wore T-shirts that said ??I am not a criminal,? talked emotional about how dispensary workers are often their saviors.
??These people mean a lot to me,? said Fred Kapp. ??They come to my house. I don??t want to have to go to the (San Fernando) Valley or 200 miles away to the north to get my meds. It??s not fair.?
On the whole, the Goleta City Council expressed compassion for the medicinal marijuana users.
??This law was passed by the people of the state of California,? said Councilman Michael Bennett. ??I am not going to stand in the way of the people??s vote. Whether I like it or don??t like it is immaterial.
Councilman Eric Onnen too said he was not convinced that a permanent ban was necessary. He said he needed to see evidence from law enforcement that the dispensaries were creating unusual amounts of crime reports in the area. He saw no such evidence and therefore came to the conclusion that the dispensaries are doing more good than harm.
??As a decision-maker, for me, if part of the rationale (for a ban) is increased crime, I don??t have enough data to make that decision,? Onnen said.
Onnen, the owner of Santa Barbara Airbus, said he is concerned about the medicinal marijuana patients.
??The concept of compassion does strike the heartstrings for me,? Onnen said.
Other advocates who spoke were upset that continuing the ban on new dispensaries would directly benefit the one commercial dispensary in business ?? essentially eliminating its competition in Goleta.
??Growing is really not an option,? said advocate Lisa Blanco. ??Without dispensaries, people who need to get it might have to do it illegally.?
Other speakers said it was unfair to go against the will of the people. Mark Russell, operator of Grass Roots Research in Goleta, stormed out of the meeting after last night??s vote, where he quickly lit a cigarette outside of the council chambers.
??I really think the regulations should be reconsidered,? he said. ??Fifty six percent of the voters supported it (Prop 215); that means more than half of the people in this room support medicinal marijuana.?
The most touching moment of the meeting belonged to Litvin, who revealed his difficult personal struggle after being diagnosed with Crohn??s Disease. He said he was a promising graduate student whose life was destroyed after his diagnosis.
The pain of living with the disease was excruciating, he said, and he lived much of his life drugged up on morphine. He turned to medicinal marijuana to ease his pain restore some of the quality to his life.
??If you know someone who??s been on morphine for 14 months that??s no way to live,? Litvin said. ??I would have committed suicide if I had to go on that way.?
Goleta! With hard times all around us theses days, I say here is one more backwards town that should be boycotted until it is no more. Whoe needs a bunch of uninformed ex lawders running little one stop sign town anyways??Let this little town die, see if our pot profits ever fine there way to this soon to be deid town anyways?P&P!!
