The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana has stopped a lower court hearing that could have immediately shut down a Capistrano Beach medical marijuana dispensary.
The appellate justices' temporary stay of Tuesday's scheduled
preliminary-injunction hearing is related to the lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court by attorneys for a San Clemente woman who was born with epilepsy, blindness and cerebral palsy and is a patient of Beach Cities
Collective.
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As we told you last month, the suit claims the city of Dana Point's dispensary ban unconstitutionally interferes with 29-year-old Malinda Traudt's fundamental rights to life and safety under the California Constitution.
The Orange County Register's Vik Jolly is all over the case.
Local judges are basing decisions on the fate of dispensaries on rulings being issued up and down the state. Jeff Schwartz, Traudt's lawyer, explains that the appellate justices did not want to be hamstrung by lower court rulings in future appeals, so they stepped in and issued the temporary stay.
Schwartz and attorneys fighting dispensary bans in Dana Point and elsewhere hailed the appellate action as a victory, although much more time, resources and filings must be spent in Orange County Superior and appellate courtrooms as the ban battle rages on. Many indicate they represent patients with circumstances similar to Traudt's.
Traditional medications did not stop the pain suffered when Traudt came down with osteoporosis in the
last two years. However, using cannabis supplied by Beach Cities
Collective brought her dramatic relief, Schwartz has said.
Traudt's family had been told to look
for hospice before she turned to medical marijuana. Her mother, Shelly
White, pushed her into Beach Cities instead–and discovered what she calls “life-saving medicine.”
But Dana Point in March sued
six medical marijuana dispensaries in an effort
to shut them down, arguing such clinics are not allowed under municipal
code. Traudt's suit seeks a permanent injunction preventing the city from
attempting to shut down the collective.
If her daughter loses in court, White has told Jolly, “I guess
I'll have to buy it from the drug dealers.”
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.