Source: Patient Care Association of California (PCA)
Citizens for Patient Rights and The Patient Care Association of California (PCA) have successfully halted the ban on medical cannabis collectives in the City of San Diego. Faced with the prospect up to one million dollars in ballot expenses, San Diego City Council voted 6-2 with council members Marti Emerald and Tony Young opposed today to repeal the suspended ordinance banning collectives rather than fund the placement on the ballot in June 2012. The PCA thanks the people of San Diego for their support. In addition, we believe the council members acted in the best interests of the city by not wasting taxpayer dollars in this time of fiscal crisis.
“We thank the city council for their fiscally responsible vote today. We look forward to engaging in productive, good faith negotiations with the City so that we can create sensible laws that allow for safe access across the city,” Said Bob Selan, spokesperson for the PCA.
Citizens for Patient Rights is now crafting an initiative to go on the June 2012 ballot that will put into law a common sense approach to protecting the rights of patients while respecting the needs of the larger community. The City’s own Medical Marijuana Task Force has already laid a solid foundation for such an initiative and the cornerstone of any campaign will be by-right zoning that allows collectives to operate in all zones except residential. The PCA holds that sick patients should not have to travel far and wide to access their medicine. The PCA envisions a city in which the sick and dying can access their medicine in the same manner as prescription drugs.
A large number of groups and individuals have helped in this process. The PCA would like to thank Nuggetry, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, The Reader, CA NORML, California Cannabis Coalition and all of the patients, caregivers, and other supporters who donated their time, energy, and resources for gathering signatures to repeal this ordinance.
INFORMATION ON ALL COLLECTIVES IN CITY OF SAN DIEGO (compiled by the Patient Care Association of California)
- Collectives in City of San Diego serve an estimated patient base of over 70,000 (approximately 8,100 patients daily).
- Collectives employ greater than 1917 people directly and indirectly (approximately 1037 directly) in the City of San Diego (estimated over 1200 residents of City of San Diego versus the county).
- We estimate that over 600 additional members/ member families provide ancillary services and products to their collectives.
- Collectives generate almost $5.25 million in annual tax revenues to the general fund.
- All Collectives pay a total monthly rent in excess of $334,800, which is more than $4.0 million per year.
- Collectives generate commerce and trade estimated at greater than $550,000 daily (approximately $200 million annually) in City of San Diego.
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On June 17, 1971, President Nixon told Congress that “if we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely destroy us”. After forty years of trying to destroy “the drug menace in America” we still *haven’t* been able to destroy it and it still *hasn’t* destroyed us. Four decades is long enough to realize that on this important issue, President Nixon was wrong! All actions taken as a result of his invalid and paranoid assumptions (e.g. the federal marijuana prohibition) should be ended immediately!
It makes no sense for taxpayers to fund the federal marijuana prohibition when it *doesn’t* prevent people from using marijuana and it *does* incite the awful violence we read about in the news every day by making criminals incredibly rich and providing the Mexican drug cartels with a motive to murder thousands of people every year. While it makes sense to try to discourage people from using marijuana, it makes no sense to cause thousands of brutal deaths and arrest 800,000 people a year for nothing more than possessing the dried flowers of a plant. This is what the federal marijuana prohibition achieves, and it is fundamentally wrong!
We need legal adult marijuana sales in supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies for exactly the same reason that we need legal alcohol and tobacco sales – to keep drug dealing criminals out of our neighborhoods and away from our children. Marijuana must be made legal to sell to adults everywhere that alcohol and tobacco are sold.
“There’s something extraordinarily perverse when we’re so concerned about preventing addicts from having access to drugs that we destroy the lives of many times more people, either through untreated pain or other drug war damage”.
Amen sista!!
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