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Chief: Medical marijuana business doesn’t fit Mammoth Lakes lifestyle |
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Saturday, 14 November 2009 |
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By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 Police Chief Randy Schienle hopes to persuade town council to enact a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries in Mammoth Lakes until town government can figure out how they will be regulated – or if they should even be licensed here.
“To me it flies in the face of what this community stands for, and that’s a healthy lifestyle,” Schienle said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
He will make a presentation at the Nov. 18 town council meeting to survey the local landscape. “For me, the real issue is we are a community that promotes a healthy lifestyle.”
California is one of 13 states that has permitted and regulated dispensaries following voter approval in 1996 of the use of medical marijuana, but cities are within their rights to enact a moratorium, Schienle explained.
Two months ago, the county supervisors adopted fees to administer approval and issuance of medical marijuana ID cards in conjunction with the state’s Medical Marijuana Program in Mono County (one of the last of California’s 58 counties to do so). To date, no one in Mammoth Lakes has come forward with a business application.
Because the town council has previously opposed the smoking of cigarettes in and around town and inside buildings, Schienle believes that allowing medicinal marijuana businesses would go against that precedent.
He hastened to add that he’s not trying to stop someone who has cancer, for example, from using medical marijuana.
“But if they can grow it legally in their home, I just don’t think this community should open up dispensaries that make it so easy to get.”
He clarified that someone with a medical marijuana card can possess up to six ounces or grow six plants of marijuana in his home.
Schienle’s talk will focus on the increased crime, such as theft and other drug-related activities, that many other California communities have faced when medical marijuana dispensary businesses have opened up.
“I think the other thing that has been discovered is businesses that are adjacent to business marijuana have found that the clientele and some of the related or associated activities with some of those clientele have not necessarily been good for business.”
While suggesting that such clientele might be unsavory, he declined to categorize anyone.
“My fear is that a person can get cards in this day and age for almost any ailment,” he elaborated.
The California Department of Public Health Web site says that persons diagnosed with “a serious medical condition” qualify for medical use of marijuana. Those medical conditions include AIDS, anorexia, arthritis, wasting syndrome, cancer, chronic pain, glaucoma, migraine, spasms associated with multiple sclerosis, epileptic seizures, severe nausea, and any other chronic or persistent medical condition that limits the ability of the person to conduct one or more major life activities as defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
Just last Tuesday, the American Medical Association urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use.
“The limited nature of rigorous scientific studies on the therapeutic use of cannabis is insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product,” said AMA board member Dr. Edward Langston in a statement.
And according to a report in the Los Angeles Times the following day, polls show broadening support for marijuana legalization.
The Obama administration took a step in that direction this year by prohibiting federal narcotics agents from arresting medical marijuana users and providers who follow state laws.
Santa Barbara is one California city that allows medical marijuana dispensaries. The Healing Gardens there is locally owned and medical marijuana is locally grown.
But Schienle cautioned that many communities have discovered another problem associated with medical marijuana dispensaries: high school age students are getting their hands on the stuff.
“I just think that it goes totally against encouraging our young people not to get involved in smoking tobacco, and my personal opinion is that tobacco products are regulated by the federal government,” he emphasized.
There are currently no medical marijuana dispensaries in Mono County. In Inyo County to the south, the City of Bishop has issued an ordinance prohibiting them.
It remains to be seen whether Schienle will be successful in persuading the Mammoth Lakes town council to follow the lead of many other cities that have found that these businesses are not in the community’s best interest.
“I just don’t think they speak to what this community is trying to establish.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 20 November 2009 )
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