Frequently Asked Questions About Medical Cannabis Dispensing Collectives

• Is a health services collective that sells medical cannabis legal? Yes. To clarify the voter initiative passed in 1996, Proposition 215, the state legislature passed the Medical Marijuana Program Act (MMP) known as State Bill 420 in 2003, establishing that patients and caregivers may collectively or cooperatively cultivate and distribute cannabis medicines. The Act exempts collectives and cooperatives from criminal sanctions associated with “sales” and maintaining a place where sales occur. In 2005 California’s Third District Court of Appeals affirmed their legality in the case of People v. Urziceanu, which held that the MMP provides collectives a defense to marijuana distribution charges. In August 2008, the California Attorney General issued guidelines declaring “a properly organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful under California law.”
• Why do patients need access to a dispensing collective instead of growing their own? While some long-term patients have the time, space, and skill to cultivate cannabis, the majority of patients do not have the skills or ability to produce medicine. For those patients dispensing collectives are the only option for safe and legal access to these therapies. For example, many of the most serious and debilitating illnesses require immediate relief. It is unreasonable to exclude those patients most in need because they are incapable of gardening or cannot wait months for relief.
• What are other communities doing to help patients? Many communities have recognized the essential service that dispensing collectives provide and have allowed their operations or have adopted ordinances regulating their operations. Regulations are a way cities can ensure the needs of patients in their community are being met while exerting control of the organizations. It is officials’ duty to implement state law, even if they have not supported cannabis legislation in the past. Dozens of cities and many counties have adopted ordinances regulating collectives to ensure the patients in their community have access to these therapies.
• Who should administer dispensary regulation in our community? To ensure that patients, caregivers and collectives are protected, general regulatory oversight duties, such as permitting, record maintenance, and general protocols should be the responsibility of a local Department of Public Health (DPH) or the Planning Department. Besides security matters, law enforcement is ill suited in handling matters related to health and medicine.
• How many collectives do wee need in our city? Arbitrary caps on the number of collectives can be counter-productive. Like other services, competitive market forces and consumer choice will be decisive. Collectives that provide better care and service to patients will flourish and those that do not will fail. Capping the number can result in limits of consumer choice resulting in decreased quality of care and often-higher prices. It can also force patients with limited mobility to travel farther than they would normally need to in order to access their medicine and care.
• What types of zoning restrictions are needed for this type of organization? Restrictions on where collectives can locate are often unnecessary and create barriers to access. Dispensing collectives are not shown to create increases in crime or bring harm to their neighborhoods, regardless of where they are located. It is unnecessary and burdensome to require patients to travel to areas often far away from public transit to access their medicines. It is important to balance patient need with concerns