Patient Care Association

The Patient Care Association of California condemns the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s raids on medical marijuana Compassionate Use Dispensaries, acting in full compliance with California state law, in the City of San Diego and around the state of California. These actions are an affront to the democratic process in the state of California, the will of the California voters and patients.

These attacks directly target patients, contrary to current federal policy and state laws, and will deprive patient’s legal access to their medicine forcing them back to the black market. This will directly enrich illegal drug dealers and drug cartels.

The Patient Care Association is the association of medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives in San Diego, dedicated to following state regulation, crafting fair local regulation and self-regulating to ensure that we best serve our patients and the community. We contribute to the local and state economy in the form of taxes, employment of hundreds individuals and ensuring safe affordable access to thousands. Despite our good faith efforts, our collective membership, operating in full compliance with state laws, are being attacked.

This blanket attack on the medical marijuana community does not serve the interest of the patients, their caregivers or the general community. It goes directly against the will of the California voters who voted over 15 years ago for compassionate use, and continue show their support for this law.

The federal government is acting directly against the sovereignty of our state by its failure to respect our direct democracy laws. With the federal budget on empty, the economy in disarray, our prisons overflowing, and prohibition-related violence raging across the border, it’s an outrageous misuse of federal resources to wage war on marijuana dispensaries.

We ask that the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration immediately cease its raids on Compassionate Use Dispensaries in San Diego and around the state.

Citizens for Patient Rights, in association with the Patient Care Association, is proud to announce the submission of the initiative proposal, Compassionate Use Dispensary Restriction and Taxation Act, for collective zoning in the City of San Diego.

The initiative proposal was submitted to the San Diego Daily Transcript at 2:30pm on Monday, December 19^th.

This initiative proposal was crafted after consultation with representatives of city government, community groups, patients and the general public regarding their concerns about medical marijuana collectives. We have found that the greater community is compassionate towards medical marijuana patients and supports the rights of all patients to have access to cannabis medication in San Diego City.

The main concerns we heard focused on operational safety – collective security measures and operating standards. Therefore, our initiative has been written with these concepts in mind, making sure that collectives operate as responsible good neighbors, serving the needs of the patients and the community at large.

We also feel that it is important that collectives contribute directly to the City of San Diego, so we have included a tax on storefront collectives, so that the collective will have a direct, positive impact on the city budget.

The Compassionate Use Dispensary Restriction and Taxation Act accomplishes the following:

• Allows the City of San Diego to collect supplemental tax revenue for the city budget from medical marijuana collectives operating in the city.
• Mandates in which zones medical marijuana collectives are allowed to operate
• Prohibits medical marijuana collectives from operating in sensitive zones – including residential zones and near areas where children congregate
• Establishes Operational Standards for medical marijuana collective including operational hours, security measures, and signage standards
• Mandates third party inspection and certification to ensure that the collectives are in compliance operational standards
• Allows the city to levy cost recovery fees to mitigate the cost of medical marijuana collective regulation

We will need 62,057 signatures for our initiative petition in order to qualify for the November ballot. We will have a period of six months in which to gather these signatures.

We have full confidence that we will qualify for the November ballot, having recently completed a signature gathering campaign for a referendum initiative to overturn a severely restrictive ordinance within thirty days. In the referendum effort, we saw the overwhelming public support, as we succeeded in submitting over 15,000 additional signatures above and beyond those needed to qualify our referendum within the thirty day window.

We are confident that we will prevail in enacting fair regulations that meet the needs of patients, caregivers and the community at large through the direct democracy process.

View the Initiative!

Learn More About the Initiative Proponents:

About Randy Wall

About Ruth Wall