75A - PH - MEDICAL MARIJUANA - PROHIBIT

Home Browse Search

When I started smoking pot on the East Coast in the'70s,1 remerriber the choices being basically Jamaican, Colombian a.nd skunkweed. Today the strains are dizzying in variety and power, and all are available at the dispensaries. lt's a real business: The Los Angeles Journal for the Education of Medical Marijuana, a free monthly, lists doctors, collectives and lawyers and covers events such as the 2006 DOESHA Cup, a tasting event in which California marijuana growers compete. lt's all a bit overwhelming for a boomer.....Dispensaries are more like cash-and-carry package stores in states that control liquor sales. Another party stopper: Sharing or reselling a .patient's medical cannabis is illegal. Sotne dispensaries try to make it all seem. like a party, though. They advertise with slogans such as "KushMart: Where It's 4:20 Always (4:20 being shorthand for smoking pot or getting high-and, incidentally, the number of the 2003 state Senate bill). There's also a tnaybe- not-sa-clever propensity for employing words such as "therapeutic" and "herbal" and ~~ compassion -so that the initials of dispensaries, including Therapeutic Health. Care and Today's Holistic Caregivers, are TIIC. I found. one outfit that doesn't mess with any of that: The Natural Relief Center in Canoga Park, which doesn't advertise and shuns windshield fliers. Owner Michael Levitt got into the business one year ago. "I was comfortably retired," he told me, "but my wife didn't like me around the house so much." What motivated him were myriad health problems, including diabetes and high blood pressure. "At 51 years old, it doesn't wear well to deal with. street thugs to get medication. I thought I could help people and bring the game up as a businessman." He described his ,~ storefront as "a community spot. There s a hairdresser on one side and a newsstand on the other. In L.A., City Councilman Dennis Zine of the West Valley wants dispensaries to be located in industrial, commercial or business areas, where they re not going to have an impact on young people." I'm all for that. {By the way, the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee voted in January in favor of enacting a moratorium on new dispensaries until the city devises rules governing them.} 1 learned a lot during my months as a medical marijuana user and came to three conclusions: My tolerance is low; pot should be legal as a pain reliever; the distribution system in place right now has room for improvement. But it's like Winston Churchill said about democracy-it's the worst form of government, except for al] the others. Source: http•//www latimes cam/features/nrin.ted.ition/mah~zine/la-tm- mari'uana06i'eb1.1.1.7379401.sto '?coil=la-headlines-m.a TaZIt1G:&ctraclc=l&cset=true 28 75A-123