Excerpt
Fifteen years after California voters legalized medical marijuana, state lawmakers are still struggling with how to regulate and tax what has become a billion-dollar industry fueled by the growing number of pot dispensaries up and down the state.
Lawmakers took steps recently to ban pot shops from residential neighborhoods and give local governments the authority to shut down problem operators. They also rejected proposals to reduce penalties for illegal pot cultivation and protect medical marijuana patients from workplace discrimination.
Some legislators and others who favor the easing of marijuana laws say those actions reflect a political disconnect on an issue that many Golden State residents now consider mainstream. The Legislature's piecemeal approach, they say, has resulted in a murky regulatory climate that strains law enforcement resources and deprives state coffers of much-needed revenue.
"As usual, legislators feel like they've gotta get tough," said Dale Gieringer, state coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "If there's a problem, we have to pass more laws for people to break. It's classic legislative syndrome."
But many city leaders, law enforcement officials and lawmakers counter that some sort of crackdown is necessary, especially in Los Angeles, where hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries opened with no oversight after the city initially failed to enforce a moratorium it imposed in 2007. Across California, shops are suing cities that step up enforcement, challenging local governments' right to regulate an activity approved by voters.
Around and around we go, where it stops nobody knows.
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