http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-return-of-reefer-madness/Content?oid=1661015
A growing number of East Bay cities have banned or are considering
bans on medical marijuana dispensaries because of outdated, bogus fears.
By Robert Gammon
March 24, 2010
Californians have recognized that cannabis is a legitimate medicine
since 1996. That year, state voters legalized pot for medicinal
purposes. But a decade and a half later, there's a growing backlash
against pot in the liberal East Bay. An increasing number of cities
have banned or on the cusp of banning medical marijuana dispensaries.
And they're doing it based on out-of-date and unfounded fears
reminiscent of the Reefer Madness scare of the 1930s.
Hayward decided to reject medical marijuana dispensaries last month
after the city's police union lobbied hard against them. And in the
coming weeks, the City of Alameda may ban pot clubs outright. In
addition, the county of Contra Costa and several East Bay cities,
including Antioch, Brentwood, Concord, Oakley, Pinole, Pleasant Hill,
and San Pablo all have banned them in the past several years.
Although the 1996 voter initiative legalized medical marijuana, state
law still allows cities and counties to prohibit the sale of it.
In the East Bay, cities are closing their borders to medical pot
dispensaries in large part on the belief that they're magnets for
crime. But there is little evidence to support that claim. For
example, Alameda city officials who want to ban cannabis are pointing
to a "white paper" published last year by the California Police
Chief's Association and endorsed by numerous law enforcement
officials around the state, including Contra Costa County District
Attorney Bob Kochly. But a closer examination of the report reveals
that it is deeply flawed and establishes no proof that medical
marijuana facilities attract any more crime than other businesses.
Instead, the report highlights a few salacious crimes related to a
handful of medical marijuana facilities, and warns that they attract
"organized criminal gangs" and that some club operators "have been
murdered by armed robbers both at their storefronts and homes." But
the report makes no mention of similar crimes affecting other legal businesses.
Moreover, the report focuses on pot clubs in communities that have
failed to establish regulations on how they should operate, while
ignoring the experiences of cities including Berkeley and Oakland
that have adopted strict rules for medical marijuana facilities. The
white paper and officials in cities that have banned pot clubs have
failed to note that the medical marijuana facilities in both Berkeley
and Oakland have generated almost no crime at all since those cities
adopted their straightforward regulatory schemes.
In fact, the police departments in both cities say medical pot
facilities now pose virtually no problems nor are they diverting
precious resources away from crime-fighting. "We haven't seen any
issues involving medical marijuana dispensaries," said Oakland police
spokeswoman Holly Joshi. "They're not generating a lot of calls for
service," said Berkeley police spokesman Andrew Frankel. "And they're
not a drain on resources."
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilman Kriss Worthington, who
often disagree on city issues, both agree that the three sanctioned
medical marijuana dispensaries in the city have had virtually no
crime associated with them. "The problem is that there's a perception
among people that the dispensaries attract crime," Bates said, "but
that hasn't been our experience."
"I can't remember getting a single phone call from anybody about
crime or other problems with the dispensary in my district," said
Worthington, who said many residents and business owners expressed
fears before the dispensary opened. "But I have gotten calls from
people who said, 'Yeah, you were right they don't cause any problems.'"
In Oakland, Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said that both police and
neighbors of medical marijuana facilities now welcome them. "When we
talk to police about the regulated dispensaries," Kaplan said, "they
tell us that they're not just having less crime, they're attracting
zero crime."
A complaint often heard in cities that have banned medical pot clubs
or are considering banning them is that residents and businesses
don't want them in their neighborhoods. "At this time, staff is
unable to identify any locations in Alameda that staff believes the
community would deem to be acceptable," Alameda Interim City Manager
Ann Marie Gallant wrote in a report earlier this month, calling for a
ban on pot clubs in her city a proposal the city council plans to
take up in the next several weeks.
But in Berkeley, many residents and businesses who opposed medical
pot dispensaries opening near them now say they're good neighbors.
One reason is that the city's three dispensaries all do an effective
job policing themselves. All employ several security guards and
enforce strict rules of behavior on their customers. So much so, that
some neighbors contend their communities are safer because of the pot
clubs' presence, Worthington said.
Likewise, in Oakland, medical pot dispensaries have become part of
the fabric of the city's blossoming Uptown District, and the club
owners are working to improve their neighborhoods and make them safer
just like other businesses. "We have cannabis dispensaries that are
members of the chamber of commerce," Kaplan noted. "We have a
cannabis dispensary operator who is the chair of his neighborhood
crime prevention council."
Another complaint lodged by city officials in both Hayward and
Alameda is that they are just too busy to come up with their own
regulatory schemes. However, neither city has looked closely at
Berkeley or Oakland nor have they seriously considered adopting their
successful regulations. Moreover, the decision by cities to ban pot
clubs only makes it more difficult for sick people to obtain medicine
that gives them relief.
However, the bans are not all bad. In fact, they're helping the
cash-strapped City of Oakland. That's because Oakland taxes medical
marijuana sales and so if other cities force patients to travel to
Oakland to get medicine, then it brings in more revenue, noted
Kaplan, who co-authored the city's 2008 tax measure. In other words,
not only are East Bay cities banning pot clubs out of unfounded
fears, but they're harming their own ability to raise funds during
one the worst economic downturns since the last time the country was
engulfed by Reefer Madness.
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