Calif. Senate Opens Path to Legal Marijuana Clinics

http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jim-miller-headlines/20130520-medical-pot-senate-opens-path-to-legal-clinics.ece

Medical marijuana dispensaries that agree to maintain nonprofit status, improve security and follow other guidelines from the California attorney general’s office would be exempt from prosecution under legislation that passed the state Senate.

The measure is meant to clear up regulatory confusion surrounding California’s troubled medical marijuana industry some 16 years after voters approved Prop. 215, which legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

Supporters say the bill would deter federal law enforcement wary of the state law. Backers say the bill also should ease the concerns of the more than 200 local governments, including Riverside, San Bernardino and other Inland Southern California communities, that have passed ordinances banning the storefront sale of medical pot.

In the Assembly, a medical marijuana regulation bill by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, would create a Division of Medical Marijuana Regulation and Enforcement in the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

The division would regulate “the cultivation, manufacture, testing, transportation, distribution, and sale of medical marijuana,” according to the bill.

After the Supreme Court ruling, Ammiano suggested that his bill could be “friendly persuasion” to cities and counties that prohibit the dispensaries, with the goal of improving medical marijuana patients’ access to the drug.