L.A. repeals its ban on pot stores

7:34 PM PDT, October 2, 2012

The 11-2 vote to rescind the measure approved in July leaves the city with no law regulating about 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries

After struggling for years to regulate storefront pot shops, the Los Angeles City Council retreated Tuesday, voting to repeal the carefully crafted ban on medical marijuana dispensaries it approved a few months ago.

The move shows the political savvy of the increasingly organized and well-funded network of marijuana activists who sought to place a referendum overturning the ban on the March ballot, when the mayor and eight council seats will be up for grabs.

It also leaves Los Angeles, once again, without any law regulating an estimated 1,000 pot shops, which some describe as magnets for crime and others call a source of relief for those who are desperately ill.

The council’s 11-2 vote came after an impassioned plea from Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a medical marijuana patient who is fighting a rare form of cancer. Looking gaunt and speaking in a faint voice, Rosendahl asked his colleagues how sick patients like him would be able to acquire the drug if the ban remained in place.

“Where does anybody go, even a councilman go, to get his medical marijuana?” he said.

Like other cities in California, Los Angeles has strained to find a way to balance the state law that permits medical marijuana against federal statutes that continue to make its sale and use a crime. Federal officials recently launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in the city, leading one council member to suggest that any regulation is beyond L.A.’s control.

Source: L.A. Times