Pompo

Anaheim wins marijuana challenge
A judge rules that the city can enforce its ban on medical-marijuana dispensaries for now.
9/28/07|The Orange County Register| by Sarah Tully

Anaheim officers are free to enforce a ban on medical-marijuana dispensaries for now, under a court ruling Friday.

Judge David Thompson of Orange County Superior Court denied a request by a medical-marijuana group to block Anaheim's law forbidding dispensaries until a trial can be held. The judge's ruling, issued late Friday, also stated the group was unlikely to succeed in a trial.

The lawsuit by Qualified Patients Association is believed to be the first such legal challenge in Orange County of laws against medical-marijuana outlets. About 15 Orange County cities have banned or are contemplating outlawing dispensaries. Other cities are closely watching the case as a possible precedent.

Tony Curiale, the association's attorney, said he was disappointed in the ruling. He was unsure what the association, which runs a dispensary from an Anaheim storefront on a major thoroughfare, plans to do in the meantime.

"We still have a trial, but it doesn't help us between now and then," Curiale said.

"I'm glad the court agreed with me, but I assume this isn't the end," said Moses Johnson, deputy city attorney. "It's just the first stage."

Voters approved a state proposition in 1996 to allow marijuana use for medical reasons, but federal law outlaws the drug. The state law says patients can use marijuana if they get permission from their doctors.

Over the summer, the Anaheim City Council approved an ordinance to outlaw dispensaries that issue marijuana to patients. Police knew about another dispensary, but were unaware of the association that began about five months ago.

Thompson's ruling came after an hourlong hearing Friday morning at the Santa Ana courthouse in which attorneys debated whether federal law should trump state or city laws on medical-marijuana use.

Curiale said patients could be harmed and at risk of arrest if the law stays in place.

"What the city is doing makes criminal what the state makes non-criminal," Curiale said.

But Johnson said the city should be allowed to create its own rules about dispensaries, which state law fails to cover.

"What the state effectively has done is make drug dealers legal," Johnson said.

Johnson said the city justified the ban because of problems at another dispensary, where an armed robbery and illegal drug use occurred. An undercover officer went to the dispensary and got a name of a doctor to give him a prescription. The officer told the doctor that he had no medical problems, but the doctor gave him a note for $200 anyway.

"It's been fraudulently abused by people who want to get high," Johnson said.

Curiale said all dispensaries shouldn't be shut down because of problems at one. He said laws, including Anaheim's, act as a "boa constrictor on the body of patients of this state."