There are two bills on Governor Jerry Brown's desk that “will severely limit safe access to medical cannabis in California,” according to advocates, and one was authored by an Orange County legislator.
State Senate Bill 847 by Sen. Lou Correa, the Santa Ana Democrat who has never met an online gambling interest he doesn't like (and carry legislation for), would prohibit medical cannabis
cooperatives and collectives from being located within 600 feet of any
residential zone or use.
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“This will force patients' associations to the outskirts of most cities-if they can find a location at all!” Don Duncan, California director of Americans for Safe Access, tells 420 Times.
Actually, Correa's bill will largely be moot if Gov. Moonbeam signs the other bill, Assembly Bill 1300 from MOA Bob Blumenfield (D-Van Nuys). It would explicitly
authorizes cities and counties to ban cooperatives and collectives.
“That
means access can be eliminated in some communities altogether,” Duncan notes. “That is
not what voters intended when they adopted Proposition 215 in 1996,
calling on lawmakers, 'to implement a plan to provide for the
safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical
need of marijuana.'”
Because both bills passed easily through their respective houses, Duncan says the only hope left for patients, providers and others who support medical cannabis is to pressure the governor directly.
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.