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L.A. weighs halt to new medical pot dispensaries
10-25-06 l San Gabriel Valley Tribune

LOS ANGELES - Anyone wanting to open a new medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles within the next year might see their plans go up in smoke, under a plan approved Tuesday by a City Council committee.

The council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee asked the Planning Department, the LAPD and the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance calling for a one-year ban on building new medical marijuana dispensaries.

The proposed ordinance is expected to go before the full City Council by the start of next year, when authorities will begin to weed out illegal dealers from legitimate dispensaries.

Councilman Dennis Zine proposed the moratorium last month, saying that too many of the dispensaries were operating in the city, often illegally selling pot to those without prescriptions.

"This goes a long way toward clarifying the law and improving the health and public welfare for the city of Los Angeles," Zine aide Sharon Sandow said after the commission's decision.

About 80 medical marijuana dispensaries currently operate in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Don Duncan, Southern California coordinator for Americans for Safe Access, said his medical marijuana advocacy group supported the moratorium "as long as this is a step toward proper regulation."

"Our reports have shown that regulations protect patients and that they protect communities from abuses," Duncan told the three-member panel. "Rather than have a controversial situation in the city of Los Angeles, our constituents would prefer that there be an interim control ordinance and good regulations on the books."

Medical marijuana dispensaries are defined as "facilities that provide marijuana for medical purposes to patients or primary caregivers who have a related recommendation from a physician."

Ten years ago, 56 percent of California's voters approved Proposition 215, which says marijuana should be made available to people with medical problems, including nausea from cancer and AIDS treatments.

Federal law still bans marijuana use in all cases.

AIDS activist Richard Kearns of Hollywood, who was diagnosed with the disease in 1987, asked the committee to adopt the motion without further stigmatizing those who would benefit from medical cannabis.

"Their chance of survival would improve because their quality of lives would improve," Kearns said. "Like me, for instance, they would be less likely to heave their pills first thing in the morning."

In May, the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, including provisions on where the drug can be consumed.

The previous Los Angeles Police Commission, appointed by then-Mayor James Hahn, approved a measure in July 2005 limiting the dispensaries to commercial areas.