Yes, We the Voters kicked butt and passed Prop 215, way back in the 1990's. This enabled us to get a piece of state legislation that legalized medical marijuana to become state law
But the legislation, HB 420, allowed for planning commissions to trump the will of the people. This is actually in clear violation of the State of California's Constitution. But then, who in our legislative bodies ever pays attention to a Constitution?
Then since so many inside the Federal government seem to be propped up by cartel monies, Holder went forth with a reign of terror upon both dispensaries and also normal everyday people.
The result: in many areas, a dispensary is forced to serve a population of 250,000 people!
Over 9,000 high paying jobs have been lost, with the result that people are now on Welfare, or Food Stamps. And in my neck of the woods, the unemployment rate is 18%, so it is not like if you lose your job at a dispensary, you find other work.
Mendocino and Humboldt and also Sonoma County have passed sensible ordinances. However in Sonoma, (I think) you are required to grow indoors, which makes it harder to have decent stuff.
Rolling Stone articles indicate that the thing for people to hope for is that large concerns come into areas, as Rolling Stone points out, only large corporations will be able to figure out and abide by all the local, state and federal ordinances. (Right now, of course, on the Fed level, pot is illegal, but sooner or later that will change, and we can probably expect a 2,000 page book of rules that will be enacted.) This whole "bigger is better" attitude makes me ill.
From what I am hearing from activists in Colorado, there are already big fights between the police, and the dispensaries. The police go around and make dispensaries hide their "Open?Closed" for business signs, or even make the dispensary managers say the place is closed when in fact it is open.
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