Botanicure

Proponents of medical marijuana and local citizens of San Diego that care to follow what’s going on with medical marijuana dispensaries and want an unbiased picture of what’s going on, would do well to consult other forms of media than our local rag – The San Diego Union Tribune.  The UT ran an editorial on Tuesday December 8^th and made it quite clear where our newspaper stands on safe access to medical marijuana.

The editorial attacks our City Council by bringing up comments from the DA’s office about all medical marijuana storefronts operating outside of the bounds of the law.  The editorial goes on to further substantiate Steve Walter’s comments with those of Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who previously stated that “about 100 percent” of the marijuana storefronts in Los Angeles County operate illegally.

It’s odd that the author of this editorial did not reference the recent acquittal by jury of Jovan Jackson and his Answerdam collective.  That acquittal centered on the fact that our laws on medical marijuana collectives and dispensaries are vague and ambiguous. 

As a cancer patient and director of the Botanicure Collective I am personally disappointed with the direction our elected officials took in attacking the medical marijuana community with the raids in September.  And furthermore, as a resident of this beautiful city, I’m simply embarrassed at the kind of biased journalism that goes into the San Diego Union Tribune (with an exception of the wonderful piece by Michael Stetz a month or so back letting the medical marijuana community know that the ball is in our court – his comments were right on!).

The medical marijuana community is certainly not perfect and yes there are unscrupulous characters within the community that are utilizing the cover of the law to go about selling weed as they wish – but these same people are not representative of the majority of people that I’ve met since becoming passionate about this cause.  The expensive raids, witch hunts and investigations need to be put on “Pause” and our democratically elected officials need to do their job and engage both proponents and opponents of medical marijuana and work out a properly regulated environment to provide safe access to medical marijuana to those who need it.  Once proper regulations are established we can then go about cleaning up the “pot dispensaries” that don’t comply.

The Medical Marijuana Task Force has already presented a carefully vetted list of recommendations which appears will be dismissed by the zoning folks in the city.  And from what I can tell is just more of the same resistance that medical marijuana has faced in San Diego since it became legal.  The UT’s editorial stated “For an industry with the track record of marijuana dispensaries, these recommendations clearly don’t go far enough.  The obvious first step would be to allow marijuana dispensaries only as police-regulated businesses, just like massage parlors, strip joints, pawn shops and numerous other businesses.”

One might think with that kind of blackballing of an entire community within America’s Finest City, that our dear San Diego Union Tribune was being sponsored by the San Diego District Attorney’s Office.

Actually the Botanicure Collective is in agreement with the suggestion that dispensary owners and operators should be required to submit their applications to the police department and that all dispensary employees should be subject to criminal background checks.  It’s a fantastic idea and a wonderful step toward creating rules and regulations that we can all live by.  We’re just pissed off about the characterizations the UT made.

The Botanicure Collective would like to encourage anyone pro or con to the issue of safe access to medical marijuana to simply take the point of view that this debate is not about whether medical marijuana is legal or illegal…  or whether dispensaries/storefronts are legal or illegal…  they are LEGAL and continued efforts at making it illegal will simply result in more expensive lawsuits and a waste of our precious resources that we can ill afford.  People!!!  There are far more important issues to expend our energy on!  This issue doesn’t need to be this complicated if our elected officials would simply garner the courage to take a stand and engage the responsible members of the medical marijuana community and quit trying to either create more obstacles or in some cases – bury their head in the sand.

This is about both sides of this issue meeting in the middle and working out rules and regulations that will keep this city safe, send the right message to our children and allow legitimate patients to safely access this natural medicine.  Stop trying to paint the medical marijuana community in league with massage parlors, strip joints and pawn shops.  Stop creating an atmosphere of fear and persecution.  Engage us in real dialogue.  Amongst this community, I’ve met some wonderful upstanding citizens from young adults to senior citizens and I’m encouraged to see and hear their opinions on the ridiculous path that our newspaper and certain government officials have tried to steer this issue.  There are far more worthy causes for our elected officials to focus their energy and resources on than fighting this war that they will most surely lose at election time.

Let’s get on with the important stuff of getting this city back on track.  Engage the medical marijuana community with respect, properly regulate it and let law enforcement deal with those who don’t follow the rules.  With proper rules in place, the judiciary can properly do their job of administering justice instead of being a puppet of autocratic public officials.  Taxation will be the next step and the medical marijuana community will finally be able to be more than just a service to patients, it will also be contributing to the greater good of the community in the form of much needed revenue. 

We’re not there yet… but we will be sooner or later.