The Orange County Register posted an article today stating that a superior court judge ordered ALL legal cannabis dispensaries (collectives) to shut down immediately.   One of his reasons is that a city can not create a Land-Use Ordinance that violates federal law.   He elaborated that since cannabis is illegal federally it is illegal for a city to create an ordinance that allows for collectives to legally operate. WOW!

Despite what the city of Lake Forest feels, this argument seems very dangerous and could be a slippery slope.   Could this ruling create a precedence for all cities in the state of California?  It sure does seem that way.

My question is: What happened to State’s rights? I am by no means a legal expert and have not studied law on any level.   But common sense dictates that if the State of California makes it legal for medical cannabis patients to legally use cannabis as medicine then Federal law should not come into play AT ALL.

I would be very interested to see a list of EVERY STATE LAW (nationwide) that violates a federal law to see if medical cannabis is being targeted.   I would imagine that this can not be the only law that contradicts a federal law?

The real problem is that Proposition 215 created 2 parallel worlds when it was passed for Californians to use cannabis legally.   The first being the patients.  The second being the recreational users.  It seems that both are using the medical conduit to obtain medicine.   I am sure that communities would have very little problem if it were just legitimate patients using cannabis.  The problem in Lake Forest is that you had a bunch of collectives that opened up that were serving primarily the recreational user.  They weren’t following the rules and operated below board.   However clearly there are collectives that focus on treating patients and those should be allowed to operate… and the city needs to create an ordinance allowing them to do so.

What the cities need is an incentive to allow legal collectives to operate.  Collectives must bring something to the table other than the nuisance of having a bunch of kids wanting to get high hanging out in their parking lots.  I can tell you that the majority of patients I see are in the age range of 40-60 and have great medical reasons to use cannabis.   The patients that walk out of my office are teachers, attorneys, executives, doctors, house wives, construction workers etc.   They are the fabric of our communities and deserve safe access to medicine.

We have to wait and see what other cities follow suite.   My feeling is that Santa Ana will be the next to fall and will probably use the same argument as the judge did in Lake Forest.