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Mammoth Lakes Town Council enacts ordinance to allow time to evaluate legalities of medical marijuan |
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Saturday, 21 November 2009 |
Local businessman
at forefront of medical
marijuana endeavor
By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 At the prompting of Police Chief Randy Schienle, town council on Wednesday enacted a 45-day Urgency Ordinance prohibiting the opening of marijuana dispensaries in Mammoth Lakes until council can further evaluate the matter. Council also directed town staff to work with persons from the community seeking information about such businesses.
One such local, Steve Klassen, owner of Wave Rave Snowboard Shop, spoke openly in public for the first time about his legal use of medical marijuana since Prop. 215 passed in California in 1996. He expressed his interest in operating a medical marijuana business, which would be organized as a mutual-benefit, nonprofit California corporation with certain regulations in place that best suit the community of Mammoth.
“I am definitely willing to sit down with Steve and discuss the merits of it,” Schienle said after the council meeting. “He’s certainly one of the better businessmen in the community.”
Klassen did not disclose the reason for his legal use of the medicine. “It’s kind of an uneasy feeling going from my family and my very closest friends knowing, to the entire town of Mammoth,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday.
But he was compelled to do so for three reasons.
“The first is I personally feel it’s my right to be able to obtain the medicine that’s been agreed to by my doctor and myself, and be able to do that in a convenient way.” Currently, he drives to Los Angeles every two months for medical marijuana.
“From everything I know, to ban a dispensary outright goes against California state law and the guidelines set up by the California Attorney General,” he added. California state code allows cooperatives under California Health and Safety Code 11362.775.
“The second thing is that I’m a father. I have a son. Soon I will be talking to him about drugs and I want there to be a different paradigm about marijuana.” There’s a huge distinction to be made, for example, between crystal meth and marijuana, which the AMA has determined to have medical value.
“And the third point is that there is undeniable evidence that there [are] massive scale, illegal marijuana growing operations within our county,” he said.
Marijuana on the streets here comes from those cartels and, in his view, the only way to solve that problem is for full legalization of marijuana in California. “Having a dispensary in town pushes it that much closer,” he concluded.
Klassen emphasized he is a patient, not an activist, and also seeks to protect his reputation as a respected businessman. He publicly supported Schienle’s desire to impose a 45-day moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries.
“That’s the only way this will work,” Klassen agreed. “If they just went ahead and granted business licenses to anybody that wanted to do it, it would get out of hand. People would make mistakes.”
He said he’s been to enough dispensaries in Los Angeles to know what would and wouldn’t be congruent in Mammoth. For example, California medical marijuana law states that the substance can be distributed to patients over 18. “Personally, I don’t feel that’s right for Mammoth.” The age should be changed to 21 for Mammoth.
Indeed, one of the police chief’s stated concerns in a prior news report was that high school students might more easily get their hands on the drug.
If he is permitted to open a dispensary, Klassen said he would organize it as a cooperative, where everyone involved with the medical marijuana is a member, including the growers, the patients and the people that run the dispensary.
“In other words, the marijuana is grown under State guidelines. It’s a completely different quality of cannabis to what you buy on the street,” he explained. “You will be able to know everything about the history of the cannabis that you would get from me – what chemicals were used, what fertilizer, when and if any insecticide had to be used.”
He has taken two seminars run by attorneys in Los Angeles at the Cannabis Career Institute to learn how to legally run a medical marijuana dispensary.
Mono was one of the last counties in California to begin issuing DHS Medical Marijuana identification cards on Oct. 1. “You need a DHS card to legally operate a dispensary in California,” he said of his application. He wants to set a model for the town.
“I intend to call Steve in the next day and try to facilitate scheduling a meeting,” Schienle confirmed. “We need to get this before council by December 16, because that’s the next time council will consider this before the moratorium runs out.” |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 December 2009 )
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