Medical Marijuana Issues

Paul Krassner discusses Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine by Wendy Chapkis and Richard Webb, a book about the medical benefits of marijuana.

I have the impression that in Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs marijuana's medical benefits are widely acknowledged and accepted. Even so, it is quite impressive to listen to medical marijuana patients give their testimony. The active issues around medical marijuana in DHS are crime and location, which are intertwined. But beyond that issue, some people think there's an easy way out, a way to avoid confronting those who imagine there would be a crime or police issue, a deus ex machina, a magic parachute. And that magic parachute is Palm Springs. More than one person has suggested that we could just ban medical marijuana coops in DHS and let the patients drive over to the Golden City Across The Ten, the city where everyone already goes for restaurant dining, evening entertainment, bars, dancing, street fests, medical care, big-box shopping, etc.

Palm Springs and the other cities across the Ten have happily served all the needs of DHS residents (except for hot water & vistas) for many years. We can certainly keep doing that. We will probably need to beg for some better bus service so that our residents who need marijuana can get to the coop in Palm Springs, but we've got a lot of experience at begging.

I think, though, that we have turned (or are turning) the corner on being the poor, begging, bedroom suburb of the rest of the valley. The groundwork is being done to bring in a county clinic; we're planning to annex land to the Ten where we sure hope to get businesses that employ tons of DHS residents and pay tons of sales tax. I'll go off track here to point out that there is no IKEA store in the Coachella Valley yet. Maybe our demographics don't match up to what IKEA needs, but if they do, I think that store should be located on the northwest corner of I-10 and Palm Drive. It would be an easier drive for residents of the Inland Empire rather than fighting their way into West Covina.

Can we be brave enough to provide for medical marijuana for our residents as Palm Springs will? Or will we keep our butts safely tucked in the old comfortable safe easy chair called "It's Only A 10-Mile Drive To Palm Springs."

As for the crime and location issue, I'm sorry that only I and the one DHS city staffer were present at the Palm Springs Planning Coummission meeting to hear the numerous public commenters who repeatedly praised the safety of the location of the current medical marijuana site in Palm Springs on Amado. These are the sick, arthritic, wheelchair-bound, cancer-fighting people who have to stuff their cash in their pockets (do they take credit or debit cards at the coop?) and walk into the coop, and then walk back to their cars carrying a quantity of pot. The potential for robbery going in or out is obvious, yet patient after patient testified that they had never had any trouble. City staff at the meeting knew of no trouble. I think if there had been even a single robbery, someone, perhaps even from the police force, would have been there to tell us about it.

In DHS, if we put our medical marijuana coop out in an industrial zone we will certainly guarantee additional trouble for our police. Even if somehow a coop could be squeezed into the industrial area at Two Bunch Palms and Little Morongo, that's some extra distance for a police cruiser to be driving. If a coop ends up being located in the industrial area northeast of I-10 and Indian (if we annex that), then you can bet we'll be burning a lot of police gasoline just driving out there to check on things.

How about this crazy-ass suggestion: rather than zoning marijuana coops into unpopulated, far flung industrial zones, what if we put them where the police already patrol, where people are around doing their normal business? Give them all the safety benefits that the Amado site has, and at the same time avoid extra police expense.

Take the site of that original unpermitted marijuana dispensary that was close to Pierson and Palm for example. That particular site is within 1,000 feet of some churches (BTW, Palm Springs uses 500 feet for a buffer), but it's a good safe location. I'm sure a spot could be found with good lighting and good foot traffic in an area of the city where the police already regularly patrol. I'd say put it across the street from the police station, but that's too close to the high school, I'm sure.