PRESS RELEASE**
Americans for Safe Access
**For Immediate Release:* August 18, 2010
*Contact:* ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford 415-573-7842 or ASA Media
Santa Ana, CA* — California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal
issued a long-awaited ruling today, choosing not to decide whether
localities can ban medical marijuana distribution, and remanding the
case back to Orange County Superior Court for further factual
development. While nearly four-dozen California localities —
including some of the most populous cities, such as Los Angeles,
Long Beach, Oakland, and San Francisco — have successfully
implemented ordinances regulating medical marijuana dispensaries,
more than 130 cities have imposed bans like Anaheim’s.
The unanimous decision, authored by Judge Richard Aronson, reversed
the trial court’s ruling that federal law preempts state law, but
failed to rule on whether Anaheim’s local ordinance could preempt
the state’s Medical Marijuana Program Act (MMPA). The ruling states
that because Proposition 215 and the MMPA “do not mandate conduct
that federal law prohibits, nor pose an obstacle to federal
enforcement of federal law, the enactments’ decriminalization
provisions are not preempted by federal law.” In a statement
favorable to the plaintiff, the court questions how “a city may
criminalize as a misdemeanor a particular use of property the state
expressly has exempted from ‘criminal liability,'” as it does in the
MMPA.
“While we understand the difficult nature of deciding this issue,
the court’s ruling delays a decision that will affect thousands of
patients who remain without access to their medication because of
hostile jurisdictions,” said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with
Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country’s leading medical
marijuana patient advocacy group, which filed briefs in the
/Anaheim/ case and argued before the Court of Appeal last September.
“The silver lining to this decision is that the court has reinstated
the lawsuit and is providing the plaintiffs the opportunity to prove
that dispensary bans are illegal under state law.”
The case /Qualified Patients Association v. City of Anaheim/ was the
result of a lawsuit filed shortly after Anaheim voted to ban
dispensaries in July of 2007. Qualified Patients Association was a
local medical marijuana dispensary that had been in operation for 5
months prior to the ban. An appeal was filed in March of 2008 after
the Orange County Superior Court ruled that Anaheim could prohibit
dispensaries from operating within its city limits.
The /Anaheim/ case has drawn a lot of attention as more and more
local governments have been forced to confront the issue of access
to medical marijuana. Despite guidelines recognizing the legality of
storefront dispensaries issued in August of 2008 by the California
Attorney General, multiple statewide law enforcement associations
filed briefs in support of Anaheim’s ban, as did nearly three-dozen
cities.
“We will continue to fight for the right of patients to access
medical marijuana through medical marijuana dispensaries, which is
provided for by the Medical Marijuana Program Act, previous case law
and guidelines issued by the California Attorney General,” continued
Elford. “Whether or not the Anaheim case is brought before this
court again, this issue will eventually be reheard and we are
confident of the eventual outcome.”
*Further Information:*
Today’s ruling in /Qualified Patients Association v. City of
Anaheim/: https://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/Anaheim_Ruling.pdf
Status of California city ordinances regulating and banning
dispensaries: https://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/regulations
