Legal Marijuana Distribution: Medical Marijuana Part 2
Marijuana Dispensary Issues
Patients and primary caregivers are permitted to join together to collectively or cooperatively cultivate marijuana for medical purposes. A marijuana collective is defined as businesses, farms, etc. that is operated by the members of a group. A marijuana cooperative is a business, operating like a corporation (files articles, distribute earnings, report each transaction, etc.) for the purpose of providing medical marijuana to qualified patients and caregivers.
Collective and cooperative, also known as dispensaries, are permitted to receive “reimbursement” for the marijuana they provide to their patients. However, these entities are required to function as a closed-circuit of marijuana cultivators and consumers so that purchases and sales of marijuana flow only to members. To facilitate this closed-circuit process, dispensaries are urged to document each member’s contribution of labor, resources, or money to the dispensary and to track the source of their marijuana.
California courts have recently clarified that qualified patients cannot simply walk into a dispensary and purchase marijuana without there being an established relationship between the patient and dispensary. Rather, there must be evidence of an existing relationship where the operators of the dispensary consistently provide for housing, health or safety independent of supplying marijuana. (See People v. Hochanadel (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 997.) Dispensaries that operate within these parameters are afforded the same defenses to narcotic offenses available to qualified patients and primary caregivers.
Placer County’s Position on Dispensaries
Although medical marijuana dispensaries are allowed to operate legally in California, cities and counties are entitled to prohibit them from operating within their borders. And that is precisely what the Placer County Board of Supervisors did in April, 2010 when they voted to prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries from obtaining land use permits within the county. As a result, patients and caregivers must travel to a neighboring county such as Sacramento to obtain their medical marijuana because dispensaries are not permitted (literally) in Placer County.
You can read more about the banning of dispensaries in Placer County here.
~Dan Koukol, Placer County Criminal Defense Attorney
Tags: collectives, cooperatives, dispensaries, legal, marijuana, Placer, prop 19, proposition 19