SAN FRANCISCO – Medical pot club operators would have to hand over financial records and keep membership information under a proposal from Mayor Gavin Newsom intended to tighten up San Francisco’s regulations on the drug dispensaries.
Newsom’s proposal comes in the wake of state Attorney General Jerry Brown’s recent issuance of medical marijuana guidelines and as the tensions between medical pot club operators and federal authorities remain strained.
The use and distribution of medical marijuana is legal under state and city law, but illegal under federal law. Medicinal marijuana clinics in several Bay Area cities have been raided and shut down by federal authorities; Newsom’s proposal seeks to protect clinics from such raids by tightening up the rules they operate under.
Newsom’s proposal amends existing city regulations to require pot clubs to maintain some form of membership records. Newsom initially proposed requiring the clubs to keep a list of names and address of customers, but that ignited outrage among medical marijuana advocates and subsequently was abandoned.
The legislation also requires dispensaries to operate on a “not for profit” basis and, when requested by city health officials, provide financial records detailing revenues and expenses. Such records would be requested if there is “reasonable suspicion” the dispensary is operating for profit.
Nine medical dispensaries have received city permits to operate and 14 others are going through the permitting process, according to the Department of Public Health.
I’m not exactly sure how anything Mayor Newsom would do about dispensaries would cause the DEA to back off on raids. Also, isn’t it premature to set new regs to protect from raids when we’re not even certain yet that the Obama Administration will continue the raids?
I’m torn about dispensaries in general. On the one hand, I’d much rather see patients able to purchase medicine from a safe legal storefront than a black market dealer. On the other hand, I dislike the commoditization of health care in general and balk at a $45/eighth price no matter who is dealing the cannabis. The way I see it, dispensaries benefit from an unintended government subsidy – the prohibition that keeps the price of the medicine at black market prices.
Oaksterdam’s Richard Lee said as much at NORML CON last year. They have to keep the prices set at a point that “discourages diversion to the black market.” That means not undercutting the price of the corner drug dealer. The corner drug dealer’s price is set at $45/eighth because the cannabis passes from grower to cartel to distributor to wholesaler to retailer, each adding their cut along the way, all of them able to over-value the cannabis because of the inherent risk of prosecution. In other words, the dealer’s $45 eighth costs that much because people get locked up for it. The profit in a $45 eighth is the blood money of Jonathan Magbie, Rachel Hoffman, and Tim Garon.
So if a dispensary makes a falsely inflated profit because they have to set their prices to match the black market, don’t they have blood on their hands, too? It’s a tough ethical dilemma, because you can also point to the thousands who’ve benefitted from the dispensaries, and you can ask, “Why would you turn away a cancer patient who wants to pay $45/eighth for his medicine?”
Fair enough. I reply with this: “Why would you turn away a cancer patient that can’t afford $45/eighth?” He’s going through chemo for six weeks, but can only afford enough cannabis for one week at those prices. Do you just give him the extra five weeks of cannabis? Now, I’ve gotten the response that the dispensaries offer low-cost or no cost medicine to the truly needy, which is great, but then you’re stuck setting a line where you judge who’s “truly needy”. Cancer patient can’t afford $45/eighth, OK, he gets free meds, but migraine patient can’t afford $45, tough? Or if you allow all poor patients low cost medicine, are you not just requiring the rich patients to pay black market prices? And what of the middle class, who can afford the $45/eighth, but only if they give up something else.
Why should there be this much hassle over a weed? Why do we want to make cannabis like pharmaceuticals — overpriced, controlled by doctors, and relegated to purchase only in special buildings from special distributors?
Another thing to consider is that the dispensaries may just lock us in to a commoditized, health care-only model of marijuana acceptance. If the dispensaries set their prices lower than the black market, say $25 an eighth to start, how would black market dealers survive? The flood of cheaper weed onto the market would drive down prices and put low-level dealers out of business. I never understood that “black market diversion” argument – you’re saying that selling $25 weed would cause dealers to buy it and then jack up the price to $45? Why would I buy a $45 eighth from the dealer when anyone in California who wants a card can get one and I could just go get a $25 eighth at the dispensary?
With the dispensary model, cannabis is still illegal for the most everyone. So dispensaries make a lot of their money because prohibition exists. Without prohibition, wouldn’t marijuana be grown in huge commercial fields? Mass harvests and modern techniques would bring the price of weed way down, to levels consistent with other agricultural products. Without prohibition, there’d be no $45/eighths — $45/ounces, maybe — and the profit margins would be more like farming and less like black market drug dealing. So is it in the dispensaries’ best economic interest to work for ending marijuana prohibition? After all, it has been twelve years, hundreds of dispensaries, and millions of dollars made — have you seen them bankrolling any serious efforts to legalize cannabis for all Californians?
I want to see the day where cannabis is sold openly by anyone at farmers’ markets like tomatoes. But medical marijuana locks in the public’s mind that it is a dangerous drug that only terribly sick people should be allowed to use. How do you go from that point to, “Oh, never mind, it’s just an herb and everyone should be able to use it”? Dispensaries lock in the idea that $45 is a reasonable price for 3.5g of plant material and dispensaries have a vested interest in keeping the high price and a captive consumer base. So long as marijuana is illegal for some and they are imprisoned for it, every dollar of prohibition-inflated profit represents a life sullied by a marijuana arrest.
Perhaps dispensaries and medical marijuana are the best possible solution to an absurdly bizarre situation. The dispensaries and their customers are victims of this insane prohibition, not perpetrators of it. I just fear that we may have boxed ourselves into a political corner where medicalization and dispensaries are as good as it is every going to get and we’ll grow accustomed to the idea that weed should cost $45/eighth and you should have to see a doctor before using it.
[...] dispensaries, registered with the state Department of Human Services. Dispensaries have been controversial in California, where many are suspected of running for profit by catering to affluent young [...]
In the dispensaries defense, any one of them that was putting thousands into legalization efforts would be likely to draw the ire of the DEA. The DEA often target the owners that are the most politically vocal. I’ve seen some dispensaries in MMJ documentaries only to find out they’ve since been raided and shut down.