Marijuana Dispensaries in Encino?

Newer update here...

As we wait for the LA City Council to rule on how marijuana dispensaries will be regulated, there’s a fun game for local residents: spot the secret medical marijuana dispensaries on Ventura Blvd.

The Coffee Joint is still driving Valley Beth Shalom (VBS) crazy because it’s just down the street and behind its bland façade it isn’t selling just coffee. Encino Care Center has no signage on Ventura but if you go in the back alley behind Big 5 you come across the sign in the photo above. Dispensaries come and go quickly (Kind Meds, Alleviations, etc.) and that means back alleys and Encino Neighborhood Council allegations of vandalism, loitering and lowered property values. It’s the Wild West…

On their MySpace page, Encino Care Center declares: “ECC is a Medical Marijuana Facility and OPERATES IN FULL COMPLIANCE with Prop 215 and SB420. ALL patients MUST present original Doctor’s Recommendation with Valid California ID and follow all rules and regulations of ECC.”

With regard to the law, the City Council is working through these issues: (1) if dispensaries are selling over the counter, sales are illegal, so how do we get around that problem? (2) Are they strictly non-profit or are they raking in the dough - so should they be taxed and have salaries capped? (3) Are inspections required and should there be limits on how much marijuana is on-site? (4) How many dispensaries should be permitted in each suburb? (5) Should dispensaries be more than 500 or 1000 feet from residences, schools, parks, libraries, etc? City and County DA’s are itching to shut them down. Until there’s an ordinance though, they can’t.

West Hollywood has an ordinance that allows sales, and San Francisco and Oakland have an ID-card system in place (as do some other states where it seems to work well), so why not LA? This is a sign of how poorly the debate has been managed here. Because of official dithering, hundreds of dispensaries have sprung up and the problem will only get worse if the City Council adopts a conservative approach, which will encourage a black market and open it up to further litigation. Hopefully the day will come when they will stop criminalizing an activity that a lot of residents enjoy and want to do so legally; they will stop adding to the bloated state prison population and they will start raising potentially big tax revenues. It’s been couched as a battle between the medical benefits of marijuana versus a federal law that defines marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, but we all know the real issue is over civil liberties and public health – should it be illegal, or legal and regulated?

For a guide to current California law, here
For a useful list of prescribing physicians and medical marijuana dispensaries and clinics, many of them in the Valley but none in Encino, here
For a great blog worth subscribing to, here