Medical Cannabis - A Belongings Treatment

"How can we account for what is perhaps the most dramatic legal disparities in medical cannabis up to now? The issue of non-profit ""sale"" of medical cannabis to qualified patients via collectives and cooperatives. There's nothing else like this dispute. What do experts say concerning this anyway?

Steve Cooley, The Los Angeles District Attorney, disagrees with Jerry Brown, the California State Attorney General.

How could two prominent state-employed attorneys come to wholly different conclusions about the answer? First the Los Angeles District Attorney claims ""all sales are illegal"". The California State Attorney General was sure enough to publish in his guidelines that ""storefront collectives might be legal under state law"". How could this be? After cbdforsalenearme.com all, each attorney is looking in the same task, right?

So what is the answer? What does the law say?

COMPASSIONATE-USE ACT 1996

Proposition 215 which has been approved by way of a most Californians in 1996 and yes it became called the Compassionate-Use Act. The statute itself will not say anything about ""sales"" however it does speak about ""possession"", ""cultivating"", obtaining medical cannabis, about affordability and ""distribution"".

It does claim that qualified patients along with their primary caregivers will never be victim to criminal issues:

""(B) To ensure that patients and their primary caregivers who obtain and make use of marijuana for medical purposes upon the recommendations of a physician aren't susceptible to criminal prosecution or sanction.""

And it also pushes governments to help you ensure ""safe and affordable access"" to medical cannabis for ""all qualified patients"".

""(C) To encourage the federal and state governments to implement a plan for that safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical necessity of marijuana.""

The Los Angeles District Attorney, Steve Cooley, had State and Federal police force agents raid a medical cannabis collective and arrest no less than 3 people, the week before Christmas. He insists ""all sales are illegal"". This is apparently up against the letter and spirit of the law, not the mention the spirit of the season.

Also if all ""sales"" are illegal, why does the Compassionate-Use Act say ""affordable""? If the patients are financially responsible to the cannabis, how can Cooley expect the currency being exchanged? What's wrong with incremental reimbursements?

MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM OF 2004

The Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) arrived to law in 2004 over the legislative approval of Senate Bill 420. It was the state's attempt ""to implement an idea for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to any or all patients in medical necessity of marijuana,"" because the Compassionate-Use Act of 1996 (Prop 215) encourages the State and Federal government to complete.

The MMP improves entry to medical cannabis for qualified patients by approving collectives and cooperatives.

""(3) Enhance the access of patients and caregivers to medical cannabis through collective, cooperative cultivation projects.""

What Steve Cooley doesn't manage to understand is non-profit storefront Medical Cannabis Dispensing Collectives/Cooperatives include the distribution element of ""cultivation projects"". Just like a collective cultivation farm wouldn't have customers visit the farm to have their tomatoes, they will have to get their collective tomatoes at the farmer's market or distribution location-- that's how medical cannabis collective cultivations occur. Grown in a single place for safety and also other reasons, then distributed at another location.

The MMP procedes speak about all of the criminal statutes that qualified patients and primary caregivers are exempt from. In section 11362.765, it says: ""shall 't be subject, on that sole basis, to criminal liability under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, 11366.5, or 11570.""

Let's take a look at each of these individually:

11357: [possession],

11358: [cultivation],

11359: [possession for sale],

11360: [""transports, imports into this state, sells, furnishes, administers, or gives away""- or offers to or attempts to accomplish any of those],

11366: [Every individual who opens or maintains any place for the reason for unlawfully selling, giving away, or using any controlled substance]

11366.5 [Managing an area for manufacture, storage and/or the distribution of a controlled substance]

11570 [Every building or place used for the purpose of unlawfully selling, serving, storing, keeping, manufacturing, or giving out any controlled substance, precursor, or analog specified by this division, each building or place wherein or where those acts happen, can be a nuisance which will be enjoined, abated, and prevented, and then for which damages could be recovered, whether it can be a public or private nuisance.]

The Health and Safety Code section 11360 specifically says ""sells"". Not only that, it also says: ""gives away"" and ""furnishes"". How come the LA District Attorney's office says ""all sales are illegal"" and non-profit storefront medical cannabis dispensing collectives/cooperatives are banned?

In that same bill,

""11362.775. Qualified patients, persons with valid identification cards, along with the designated primary caregivers of qualified patients and persons with identification cards, who associate within the State of California to be able collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes, shall not solely for the basis of that fact be be subject to state criminal sanctions under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, 11366.5, or 11570.""

Again, it says that patients can collectively cultivate cannabis and distribute it amongst themselves for non-profit. Again, the distribution of medical cannabis is separate from the cultivation just as the manufacturing of my vicodin can be found separate from my pharmacy.

The Medical Marijuana Act also calls around the State Attorney General to offer guidelines related to medical cannabis:

""The bill would require Attorney General to develop and adopt guidelines to guarantee the security and non-diversion of marijuana grown for medical use, as specified.""

And that what exactly State Attorney General, Jerry Brown did inside the late summer of 2008.

GUIDELINES FOR THE SECURITY AND NON-DIVERSION OF MARIJUANA GROWN FOR MEDICAL USE August 2008

To fulfill his mandate, the State Attorney General release the following tips to help you law enforcements do their jobs as outlined by State law and to help you patients understand those laws.

The guidelines state non-profit storefront Medical Cannabis Dispensing Collectives and Cooperatives may be legal under state guiidelines whenever they followed the rules and the above laws.

""It is the opinion with this Office which a properly organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses medicinal marijuana via a storefront may be lawful under California law""

The State Attorney General confirms what legislation says. The Attorney General will be the highest-ranking legal employee from the State of California. His office also replied to the difficulties raised in Los Angeles by City Attorney's office.

According for the New York Times on October 17: Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for State Attorney General Jerry Brown, asserted after Mr. Trutanich's comments in Los Angeles, police force officials and advocates from across the state had called seeking clarity on medical marijuana laws.

Mr. Brown has issued legal guidelines that provide nonprofit sales of medical cannabis, she said. But, she added, with laws being interpreted differently, ""the final answer could eventually come from the courts.""

So what do the courts say?

PEOPLE v. MENTCH

The District Attorney's office would have you think that the Mentch decision outlaws non-profit storefront Medical Cannabis Dispensing Collectives/Cooperatives and makes ""all sales illegal"" but that decision has to do with all the definition of ""primary caregiver"" not sales.

Mentch had 82 marijuana plants growing in his home and he sold the medicine to individuals who came to his home using the primary purpose of buying cannabis. The most of the plants in Mentch's home belonged to him while he testified. Their operations has not been a collective or a cooperative nor an outlet. Mentch owned Hemporium, a for-profit care giving and consultancy business, not a non-profit collective or perhaps a cooperative.

Based over evidence the courts figured Mentch's operation was primarily a for-profit commercial venture and that he has not been a primary caregiver for the people he supplied medical cannabis to from his work from home business. I've written about this in depth here.

So there you've exactly what the courts say, what the State Attorney says, and just what the laws say; all confirm non-profit storefront dispensing of medical cannabis may be legal under State law.

Now the Los Angeles District Attorney must obey the law along with the will with the people which will help prevent wasting time and resources to hurt medical cannabis patients especially prior to Christmas. Especially when you will find over 7,000 untested rape kits the District Attorney statements to not have access to the resources to deal with.

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