Marijuana/Stoners Inc â?? DOES NOT EQUAL â?? Medical Marijuana

Prop 215 doesn't really talk about dispensaries/cannabis clubs/pot stores/drug dealers acting as care... so they've fallen under a VERY grey area - tolerated as a "necessary" component of medical marijuana in California, but most of these places are nothing more than drug dealers taking advantage of their relative free pass and the captive audience of the patients. So effectively, there is no real way to distinguish between pot growing for medical use or pot growing for traditional 'black market' sales. I'd argue that until the pot gets into the hands of the actual patients, it's ALL THE SAME. The patient's half of the transaction (any transaction) IS FULLY LEGAL. The seller (unless their actual caregiver) is not legal (but the closer to the patient the transaction is, the more likely it is to be overlooked in practice and considered ok).

Now, it's hard to believe that it's been a year since our esteemed Attorney General Jerry Brown issued his guidelines for Medical Marijuana (primarily because he's done little to nothing to actually enforce those guidelines) but as of August 2008, we basically had a directive from the top law enforcement official in the State of California on what would constitute a LEGAL marijuana distribution system for medical use. These guidelines are absolutely wonderful and will do much to help correct the many problems that Medical Marijuana faces in California.

Unfortunately, Jerry needs to grow a pair (especially if he's interested in running for Governor) and begin to enforce these rules... or better yet, just set a future date - say January 1, 2010, at which time the rules would go into effect and any operating MMJ Dispensaries/Pot Clubs/Etc at that time would be then checked out and certified as complying (if so).... This would give current clubs ample time to work on meeting the new requirements before they would go into effect. Any owners/operators who did not wish to comply could simply leave the business before the cut-off date and they would be allowed to do so without fear of future state investigation or retribution. Coupled with any new revenue bills that might come into play on the taxation of medical marijuana sales, a Jan 1, 2010 date makes sense and would allow those compassionate groups that choose to invest in the future of MMJ in California to begin collecting those taxes as appropriate and have a clean break from the past.