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Wall Street Journal Article: L.A. Targets Cannabis ClubsBy SABRINA SHANKMAN LOS ANGELES — Daniel Halbert moved here from Phoenix this year to invest his life savings in what he hoped was a golden opportunity: the medical-marijuana business. But on Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council told him to shut down his dispensary, part of a broad crackdown against a growing and unregulated marijuana industry. More than 600 dispensaries have taken advantage of a loophole in city regulations to open shop here in the past two years. The unchecked growth has alarmed some city leaders. “They were like a rash,” said City Councilman Ed Reyes, who is leading the effort to shut down many of the dispensaries. He said a colleague told him that at one dispensary near a high school, the student crowds outside made the pot store look “like an ice cream shop from the 1950s.” The planning committee has begun hearings to close the loophole used by dispensaries to set up shop with scarcely any paperwork or permits. At the committee’s first hearings last week, it told 28 dispensaries to close or face a fine. California legalized marijuana consumption for medicinal use in 1996. In 2003, the state established legal protections for medical-marijuana users who were issued a doctor’s prescription. The law also created more solid legal footing for the cooperatives that distribute marijuana for medical purposes. Dispensaries, which had numbered just a handful until 2003, began to grow statewide. By 2007, Los Angeles had 183 dispensaries.  That same year, the city attorney’s office issued a moratorium intended to block new establishments until the City Council created regulations, such as a ban on operating near schools. But the City Council never got around to setting any rules on the dispensaries. Meantime, word begin to spread that dispensary owners could open new outlets, despite the moratorium, by filing paperwork claiming a so-called hardship exemption. Some applications cited the raids by federal authorities targeting marijuana dispensaries as hardships. In other hardship applications, owners simply claimed they weren’t aware they needed permits. The hardship applications went unchallenged by the City Council, and the number of dispensaries soared to its current level of about 800. San Francisco, by comparison, has about 30 dispensaries. Mr. Halbert joined the rush in March. He was running a dating service in Phoenix when a friend pointed out an ad on Craigslist from Marc Kent, a former attorney, offering to help people apply for the hardship exemption for a $3,500 fee. He said he has helped people open up more than 100 dispensaries. “It was pretty much a turn-key operation,” said Mr. Kent. Mr. Halbert made three trips to Los Angeles and toured several facilities that had opened under the hardship clause. “I did my due diligence,” he said. He settled on a storefront on Venice Boulevard in West Los Angeles. He registered the business as Best Buds, but later changed the outlet’s name to Rainforest Collective. He placed a clapboard sign out front and advertised his services with a flashing neon sign in the window. He decorated his shop with rainforest-themed murals. Clients could select from an assortment of marijuana strains for smoking, as well as “edibles” — pretzels and cookies with the marijuana baked inside. Total investment: close to $100,000, he said. Mr. Halbert encourages customers to consume their marijuana on the premises and lures them with such offers as movie nights. “We don’t want them to just come here and get their medicine,” he said. “We want them to come here and maybe make some friends, have some fellowship.” He said he now has about 1,000 customers, but declined to discuss how much the shop makes. Mr. Halbert said he might try to fight the city order to close and planned to stay open as long as possible. In his hearing before the planning committee Tuesday, Mr. Halbert produced letters of support from residents and local businesses. Other neighborhood activists, however, have campaigned to shut down the dispensaries. Cindy Cleghorn, a member of a neighborhood council in a another part of the city, complained her area is overrun. “It’s out of control,” she said. Ms. Cleghorn said the new dispensaries violate neighborhood-improvement guidelines and operate in storefronts that are zoned for other uses. “It’s not about the marijuana, it’s about the land-use issues,” says Ms. Cleghorn, who brought her complaints to the City Council. But because so many dispensaries had opened up without resistance from the city, Mr. Halbert said, “Any business person would assume that the city’s fine” with them. Write to Sabrina Shankman at Sabrina.Shankman@wsj.com 9 comments to Wall Street Journal Article: L.A. Targets Cannabis Clubs |
 January 10, 2009 This place has everything you need here! Grateful Meds has all types of potent strains here. This is worth the trip and all new patients get a free gram...sweet! November 14, 2008 By far one of the best and the most compassionate places I've been to.  |
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Thanks sucks–any fear that Grateful Meds will be shut down?
uhm. i dont think so…
I would just like to add my 2 cents to this post … I just signed up for medical marijuana and I have never felt better! I dont smoke it for the high I smoke marijuana because it helps my pain. I see how some people could find this nonsence and just another drug but to tell you the truth its better for you then most stuff out there like pain pills that are man made and that cause all kinds of different side effects even death!!! I have taken very strong pain pills everyday for the last 2 years due to a very bad hip injury and since I have had to take these pills I have noticed my body go down hill very fast. all pain pills do is mask the pain but they also get you very addicted thats a DRUG that all doctors seem to love to hand out a matter of fact every doctor I have seen has tryed to give me some new pain pill or anti depression pill !!!! UNLIKE MARIJUANA that is part of nature a “PLANT” and has only 1 major side effect “Munchies” . I have smoked and quit and due to my hip injury I thought I would try pot again to help my pain and hopefully wing me off the pain pills.. Since I have signed up for medical marijuana I have never felt better my hip feels not 100% but it does feel alot better when I smoke it masks the pain just about the same as my pain pills do and it has helped me wing myself almost fully off my pain pills and to let you know what I’m saying is true I have been taking 6 to 10 – 10/325mg percocet “OXYCODONE/APAP everyday for the last 2 years. Now I haven’t stopped fully taking them because if I do I start going thru withdraws and I can’t sleep or eat “kinda like heroin im guessing”I would never touch that S#iT parden my french but I get cold sweats, shakes, dizzyness and sometimes puke if I don’t take them so I still take them if my hip is really bad and right befor bedtime or I wake up in severe pain but I have gone down to about 2 to 4 pain pills a day! and hopefully none soon… I know this post probably will mean nothing but if you are reading this thank you and please don’t diss medical marijuana people do need it!! and the more dispencers there are the better because not everyone has proper means of transportation some people do have to use a wheelchair” SO LET THEM POP UP LIKE A RASH!!and as for that “RASH” comment by Ed Reyes I hope you really think about what you say because it doesn’t make you look good when your talking Trash about and making other people “YOU DONT EVEN KNOW” look bad! maybe the city council should not crack down on medical marijuana but welcome the fact that more people are using medical marijuana and if the state of california tax’s it and makes it fully legal as in selling it like a cigerette then the revenues will go up! and california will come out of debt. Anyways Thanks again for reading what was on my mind! TJ.
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The cartels would be poorer, our public lands cleaner, and our children safer if we implemented a Personal Use and Cultivation Permit: $100 per year for a dozen plants. Split the proceeds between the States and the Fed.
It’s time to put the cartels out of business.
It’s time to let ordinary Americans grow a little marijuana in their own back yards.
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I hope that people will finally start voting for issues like this so that our voices are heard, rather than those of a powerful and vocal minority. It is crazy that it has taken so long to legalize marijuana for medical use. Why should the government stop somebody from smoking a pipe or using a glass bong? It shows the disconnect between the people and the law. Freedom is only possible when everyone votes and takes responsibility for democracy.
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