"Impatience and frustration" in LA

October 19, 2010 | Don Duncan

Special Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher told the Los Angeles Times that medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles are experiencing "impatience and frustration” due to ongoing legal controversy surrounding the city’s tough new regulations. That may be the first thing Ms. Usher and medical cannabis advocates have agreed on in years. Don’t expect the amity to last long. The City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is trying to close more than one hundred legal collectives deemed ineligible to register under the city’s ordinance based on broad interpretive leaps. Los Angeles Times reporter Sandy Banks said she understands why the collectives feel like this is an “underhanded trick.”

READ: LA Timnes - "Some compassionate pot shops caught in L.A. law's red tape" (Sandy Banks, October 19, 2010)

The Los Angeles City Council delayed a vote on an amendment that might have settled some of the controversy this morning. Councilmembers want more clarity on constitutional issues raised in hundreds of lawsuits now consolidated in Los Angeles District Court. Delay in unfortunate. Some small improvements in the ordinance now could do a lot to diffuse the impatience and frustration felt by collective operators who have tried to support and comply with the city’s convoluted regulatory process. Unless the City Council stands up to the City Attorney’s capricious interpretation of the law, the there may be little goodwill left for implementation after the dust settles in the courtroom.