As San Diego proved though, there is nothing preventive these idiots from spending millions on pointless exercises. It is not their money, what the heck do they care for? Glad to see that some common sense is hitting the streets...looks like it may be making it all the way to the White House. After the Obama campaign ignored the questions posed through their internet presence and in their "town hall meetings", it is refreshing to see relentlessness of the people making headway. The local politicians are denser on orders of magnitude though.

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Weeeeeeeee, this is fun! The 600 Watt Club. It even comes with fries...
Medical Grow

this sucks but lets be real here.. the compassion was erased long ago by collective owners.. i really think that if the majority of shops just made a living and not huge profits then we wouldnt be in this situation.. lets say la passed a new ordinance where all they did was make sure a shop wasnt making huge profits and thats it. all the shops would close because nobody is doing this according to the rules.

You would have groups that would open collectives according to the new rules is all. The problem as I see it, politicians stirred the angst of the public up based on lies. Then when they felt they had enough support, they launched their attacks. Were there shops making profit? Probably. I have never seen any numbers published to show this. There are no cost to income analysis given to support the claim that these places are "dealers". What we do see published a lot is how anyone can just walk in and buy pot (not true from my experience). Then the inevitable claim that the collectives product made it into...brace yourself..."the hands of our children".

These politics are out of touch...my kids can get pot faster than I can with no dispensaries/collectives/medical involved! The antis lost the war and cannot stand it. This is their tantrum.

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Weeeeeeeee, this is fun! The 600 Watt Club. It even comes with fries...
Medical Grow

come on man we all know they are making money
lets figure a small collective/coop sells 2 pounds a week( thats a low figure for most shops) 3 grand for a pound of herb @ 60 a eighth thats 15,360 bucks for a profit of 9,360 a week times that by 4 and thats a monthly profit of 37,440. now its time to pay rent so lets figure 5 grand for rent ( not nearly that much) now we are down to 27,440.. now its time to pay the electricity
lets be generous and figure 3 grand for lights. now we are down to 24,440. now its time to pay the staff, lets say that there are 8 employees all making 12 bucks a hour so roughly 480 per week per employee so a total of 15,360 a month to staff. theres still 9,080 bucks left.. these people are hurting the movement not helping.. theres a reason why we dont see numbers published by coops and its because simple math shows they are raping patients and making big money.. now all that being said i think they should make money but the laws are not set up like that now and we are all trying to follow the law right? if you want to help patients by offering affordable meds and only make a living not get rich well the laws are already set up for this but if you wanna make big money like most of these shops then you shouldn't have opened the doors until laws were set in place for you to make huge profits

as I read both of ur comments I think ur both correct.

the only thing I would add is that before the elections pinhead trutanich who is going after the clubs would not release how much he made nor who he represented. he represented corporations who were polluting Los Angeles harbour. what does this have anything to do with the present situation one might ask? well, bottom line he represents corporate criminals n the rumour is he's being paid off to go after the clubs.

there's a reason trutanich's own relatives told people not to vote for him. his motivation has never been in the best interest of the law but his own greed. he needs to b recalled for wasting resources. what a jackass he is.

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journal organic grow
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More on this topic:

"US vows crackdown on medical marijuana

By correspondent Kim Landers for The World Today

Posted Fri Oct 30, 2009 4:00pm AEDT
Updated Fri Oct 30, 2009 8:30pm AEDT
marijuana 'collectives' could be the answer to ensuring legitimate LA distribution for medicinal purposes. (Victoria Police: supplied)

• Audio: LA officials to clean up the joint (The World Today)

Officials in the United States are vowing to crack down on medical marijuana facilities even as the Obama administration signals a new hands-off policy on the drug.
Los Angeles officials have been agonising for two years over a move to introduce what they call sensible guidelines to help regulate the booming industry.
In the US, 14 states have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana, but no state has gone further than California and no city has gone further than LA, where there are more marijuana dispensaries than public schools.
Brian Berens is the owner of Green Oasis, a medical marijuana dispensary in LA.
"Daily I would say we get about 30 to 50 people in a day. We service the local community and most of the people live within two miles of the dispensary," he said.
"Our collective is a little bit different than most; we're a large operation, we have a second floor - we have a vapour lounge which is much like an Amsterdam cafe."
He says his medical marijuana cooperative complies with state laws, but the city of Los Angeles is vowing to eradicate what it calls the illegal sales of marijuana in many of the city's dispensaries.

Legitimate sales


David Berger, an assistant city attorney for the city of Los Angeles, says not even 10 per cent of the dispensaries are selling marijuana for legitimate reasons.
"How many places are there selling marijuana? About a thousand - how many of them are genuinely supplying medical marijuana to people legitimately in need? Perhaps a hundred," he said.
"What these other places are doing is basically saying, 'if you're a recreational user, if you just want to get high, find a doctor who for $150 will write you a recommendation, come in here on a nod and a wink and we will give you marijuana'."
The city of Los Angeles says California state law only allows the exchange of marijuana between growers and patients who are members of a cooperative and that it has to be on a non-profit, non-cash basis.
But Mr Berger says that for the past two years, medical marijuana dispensaries have mushroomed in the city.
"How did it happen? It's because the law that allowed this to come into effect was very poorly written and expressed in very broad terms," he said.
"And you know the emotion of allowing seriously ill people to obtain some relief was used to basically allow a poorly written law into effect."

'For medicinal use only'


LA is now trying to mount a crackdown. The council will debate an ordinance next month that introduces strict new rules about medical marijuana dispensaries.
Mr Berger says marijuana collectives, not shops, is the way forward.
"It has to be a collective, not a shop, a collective, and a collective is basically a group of people who come together for a common purpose," he said.
"In this case, it's to cultivate marijuana for medicinal use only and only amongst themselves. They cannot sell it.
"All they can do is share it amongst themselves and share the costs of cultivating the marijuana."
He also says the dispensaries will not be able to have more than two kilograms of marijuana on the premises at any one time.
No on-site consumption will be allowed and the collectives will not be able to be within 300 metres of schools, parks or other collectives.

Threat of legal action


But Mr Berens says the owners of medical marijuana facilities will fight the ordinance in court if it is passed.
"I don't know if they will be able to ratify ordinances in November - this might be just a lot of lip service for the public," he said.
"Even if they do, we have already notified Los Angeles of certain points in the proposed ordinances that our attorney will sue them if they approve them."
While the city of Los Angeles tries to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries, the Obama administration has told federal authorities not to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana users and suppliers who are not violating local or state laws.
In a statement, US Attorney General Eric Holder says: "It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana."
"But we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," the statement adds.
The city of Los Angeles says its planned crackdown would comply with these guidelines.
It says the Obama administration is making it clear that its hands-off policy towards medical marijuana only applies to places that are complying with state and local law.
But Mr Berger thinks the Obama administration's policy is the seed from which the movement to legalise all marijuana will grow."

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"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." - Thomas Jefferson my grow

"STEVE LOPEZ
A bit player in L.A.'s medical marijuana theater"
reference:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,544903.column

"...Nobody knows how many dispensaries there are in L.A., but estimates run as high as 1,000. Fourteen states allow medical marijuana, but no other place in the nation has lost control the way we have here in the City of Angels, where hundreds of outlets were allowed to open during a ban while City Council members fiddled..."

"...I'm actually not a user. Yeah, my back aches, but so far I haven't turned to herbal remedies. I know, though, that there are lots of people with far more serious medical problems, and if marijuana gives them the best relief, good for them..."

"...he unlocked another door and took me into a small room with jars of buds on display, just like in a candy shop. Charlie recommended a strain called Indica, which he called a good muscle relaxant for back pain. I opted for something called Chunky Munky and found myself craving the ice cream without even lighting up. He weighed a gram and put it into a prescription bottle, like it was Vicodin, and I handed him a $20 "donation..."

"...It'd make more sense, I told Charlie, to completely legalize, regulate and tax marijuana rather than have this crazy charade we've got now in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, billions have been spent on a drug war that has transferred wealth to drug cartels and domestic gangs, filling up the morgues in the process..."

"...Speaking of recommendations, I was told that L.A. Organic Pharmacy on Melrose is a popular herb dispensary, so I decided to check it out. While waiting for service, I was tempted by Purple Diesel, White Widow and Afgani Kush, but I finally settled on a gram of Skywalker, which was recommended for back pain.

But wait a minute. Was it the marijuana dust in the air, or were all the employees speaking Russian?

Sasha Churprovsky took me into a back room and said in a heavy accent that he was in heating and air conditioning until a few years ago, when someone suggested a career change. Now he's worried about the threat of a crackdown by L.A. City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, who reminds Churprovsky of another iron-fisted ruler.

"He's like Joseph Stalin!"..."

"... asked where all that product comes from.

Someone grows it for medicinal use, Churprovsky said, and ends up with some extra. So it gets donated to his collective, and for hundreds of members, the pain just melts away.

Beautiful. With a system like that, who needs healthcare ..."

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journal organic grow
http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...or-lights.html

"The fifth draft of Los Angeles' proposed medical marijuana ordinance -- the first draft was submitted in April of 2008 -- will be discussed at a joint city council meeting this morning at 8:30 a.m...some changes have been made."

"Most notably, the City Attorney's office "deleted the unnecessary requirement that collective members provide their names to the City as part of the registration process," says a letter to the City Council. "Their names will continue to be maintained in the collective's own books and records."

"Additionally, language has been clarified in reference to edibles. In the previous draft, it appeared edibles marijuana products were verboten. That's not the case, ...the sale of edibles--just like the sale of any medical marijuana--will be illegal."


"The law would ban most dispensaries that are already open. Only businesses that were legally in operation prior to a November 2007 date will be given 180 days to apply for new permits. Hundreds of others that opened after will be forced to shut down."

ref:
http://laist.com/2009/11/16/new_draf...juana_ordi.php

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"L.A. City Council panels reject ban on medical marijuana sales"

"Rejecting the advice of the city attorney, two Los Angeles City Council committees voted today to scrap a proposed provision that would have banned the sale of medical marijuana."

ref:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...ana-sales.html

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journal organic grow
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here's a favorite quote from the day's activities:

"...Councilman Ed Reyes, who has overseen most of the council's consideration of the issue, expressed exasperation with the city attorney's office. "I think they are very, very narrow in that they're taking their prosecutorial perspective," he said."

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