Giving the power to the municipalities to ban dispensaries never sounded like a good idea. However, on May 6th, 2013 the Supreme Court of California did just that. Cities in particular now have the power to decide whether to allow the operation of a certain dispensary or not. The problem is that 90% of the cities in California are bound to shut down medical marijuana centers, dispensaries, etc. But hey, thank god for democracy, because you had the opportunity to overcome this ruling by voting on May 21st. Basically, it all boils down to Measure F and Measure D.
Measure F
This is the measure that would allow medical marijuana facilities to continue operating without any imminent threats looming over their heads. It would also provide a certain amount of social responsibility to the community by protecting them through carefully crafted regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries. One of the biggest advantages of this measure is that it would keep the kids as far away from weed as possible, even though in reality – if a kid wants to smoke weed, he doesn’t need a dispensary to provide it for him. This would be regulated by not allowing the miners to walk in a dispensary. If this is the measure you voted YES on, then you are probably aware of the fact that Measure F requires rigorous testing of marijuana before distribution. You would be amazed at how much pesticide and chemical based fertilizers are thrown at weed in order to get the most out of the plant quantity-wise. The measure would also require that the employees of those medical dispensaries undergo a criminal background check, that the dispensaries have security on site and parking for the patients. It’s a really nice package and regulates most of the problems out of the equation, social responsibility specifically.
Measure D
Well, if you were smart, you voted NO on this one. First of all, if this measure goes through – things are not looking good for the medical marijuana dispensaries or their regular patients. This measure will actually provide the officials to leave only a small group of dispensaries open, of their choosing of course, and based on their “carefully crafted” criteria. Its simple mathematics, if the number of dispensaries decreases rapidly, then that small few will retain greater distributing power to all interested customers. Naturally, that will make the prices go up and they will go up if that happens – around 300% at least. Measure D is not as user friendly as Measure F because it doesn’t regulate the amount of toxins that can be found in a plant, meaning that you could spray it with plutonium and nobody would really label it radioactive. This bad idea doesn’t even require background checks on future dispensary employees, which, as much as we believe in reform, is probably not the best environment for a convicted felon. One of the greater failures of this measure is that it would allow kids into dispensaries. How uncool is that? This would naturally lead to a public hysteria, accompanied by a media outrage and then eventually the whole story would probably end up with more dispensary shutdowns. It would be remembered as the greatest failure since the prohibition.
Have You Voted?
The goal of D is to undermine medical marijuana dispensaries by banning them one at a time. F is trying really hard to keep things the way they were and provide marijuana to those who really need it the most. Probably the worst-case scenario in this electoral process would be that once Measure D has been approved of, if a dispensary shuts down, it cannot be opened and another dispensary cannot take its place. Slow elimination is key here.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, it seems that Measure D is leading the way.
