Posted on 03/17/2005 8:47:29 AM PST by freebilly
Critics say office leads to traffic, loitering, public pot smoking
Several individuals, who declined to give their names, occupy the waiting room area for Resource Green, a medical marijuana club off Sonoma and Santa Rosa avenues in Santa Rosa, on Tuesday. While the club has a steady following, neighbors say members smoke pot on the street and cause traffic jams.
It goes by names like Skywalker, Afghan Skunk and Trainwreck and sells for about $45 for an eighth-ounce bag.
The pungent marijuana is offered at the Resource Green Caregivers and Patient Group, a Santa Rosa club where volunteers say pot is good for what ails its 2,400 customers, whether it's AIDS, cancer or just a severe case of the blues.
The Sonoma Avenue club - one of three in Santa Rosa - has built a steady following in the 10 months since it opened, in part through a reputation for potent weed at reasonable prices.
However, neighbors say the club's popularity is nothing to celebrate. Cars clog the street outside its steel-gated doors and people smoke joints in nearby yards, Rayburn Killion said.
Killion said the place appears to be frequented most by healthy twenty-something customers, who often resell pot to people waiting outside, play loud music or urinate in the bushes.
"It's just a zoo," said Janice Spotswood, Killion's girlfriend, who went to City Hall with him Tuesday to complain. "The police told us they're directed not to do anything about it."
Others in the Luther Burbank Gardens neighborhood, including contractor Erick Rudy, said they were shocked to learn the city had licensed a business to sell marijuana so close to Juilliard Park and Burbank Elementary School.
"I don't like my kids walking through a group of 15 people smoking pot," said Rudy, who also made the trip to City Hall. "We're trying to make this a family area."
City officials said pot clubs are entitled to business licenses.
Resource Green Chief Executive Officer Ken Haus said he sells only to people with prescriptions and valid club memberships.
"We have a lot of very sick people who use this place as a refuge," he said.
Smoking at the club is prohibited. A sign in the sales room warns that those who try to sell their pot to others will be barred from buying again.
The club sells to up to 200 people a day, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., a manager said.
Haus said he'd hired guards to help with street traffic. But he conceded there isn't much he can do once customers leave. He's canceled memberships of 10 to 20 people, he said.
He said problems with the club are overblown by neighbors who don't believe in marijuana's medicinal benefits.
"During Prohibition, I'm sure there were people who didn't like the new bar on the corner," Haus said. "This is no different than a Piggly Wiggly or anything else."
Californians legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996 with the approval of Proposition 215.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the authority of the Drug Enforcement Administration to shut pot clubs, they have sprung up all over the Bay Area. In addition to Resource Green, located across Santa Rosa Avenue from City Hall, there are clubs on West Steele Lane and Montgomery Drive.
The DEA has shut at least seven Sonoma County clubs, but Santa Rosa Police Lt. Ed Hemphill said local police have made no visits to Resource Green for marijuana-related complaints.
Another case is pending before the Supreme Court, which has been asked to determine whether federal agents can arrest people for growing their own marijuana for medical use.
Federal law prohibits the use of marijuana for any purpose.
Brien Farrell, Santa Rosa's city attorney, said the city isn't likely to impose sanctions on Resource Green, but complaints about customers could lead to policy changes.
He said the City Council will consider a moratorium on new pot clubs and an ordinance that regulates the number and location. The council could act in 60 days, Farrell said.
Because the clubs are relatively new, Farrell was uncertain how the law would apply.
Public sentiment seems to favor them, he said.
"I don't think Sonoma County jurors are enforcement minded when it comes to marijuana possession cases," Farrell said.
District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua promised in his 2002 campaign that he would not pursue medical pot cases.
Brian Wims, a 44-year-old Sonoma County AIDS patient and Resource Green customer, said he hopes that doesn't change any time soon.
As he walked with a cane Tuesday outside Resource Green, Wims said marijuana was as good as any medication he has taken for pain and side effects.
Ready access to marijuana is "a godsend to me," he said.
Another customer, George Cree of Santa Rosa, said most people obey the rules.
Cree, who has a degenerated disk in his back, said he was buying a $20 bag of marijuana last week when a neighbor accused him of bumping her car.
He said he didn't.
"I'm not sure what they're complaining about," he said.
But Killion said the problems are real. He's videotaped people smoking pot in his driveway and throwing bottles out of moving cars.
Killion, a Santa Rosa lawyer, said Resource Green violates the law by selling pot.
According to the statute, certified users can grow pot for their own use or get it from a primary caregiver, he said.
"I voted for Prop. 215," Killion said. "But I didn't vote for wholesale drug trafficking in my neighborhood."
"I voted for Prop. 215," Killion said. "But I didn't vote for wholesale drug trafficking in my neighborhood."
When you make a bargain with the devil what do you expect...?
No sense opening early for this client base.
I missed the study that found medical marijuana was good for a degenerated disk in your back...
The location of this "club" is at the intersection of Santa Rosa and Sonoma Ave. This is the beginning of a three mile strip of Santa Rosa Avenue infested with drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, and pimps. There are also some homeless thrown into the mix, but most of the homeless hang out at the Mission and St Vincent DePaul in Old Railroad Square....
It;s almost as good a pain reliever as alcohol
It's good for the disease of chronic laziness, too.....
like, ping dude
This is in no-doubt related to their severe incontinence medical condition, right? Or is this a result of the blood thinning Iron City 40oz. post medical marijuana chaser? These people are sick and who can blame them for their behavior... ;)
This works out to $360 an ounce ... gold is going for about $440 an ounce. Hmmmmm ... I might consider a career change.
Yes, I can just see these guys now: "Doc, I've got a terrible case of the disenfranchiseds.."
your level of compassion for people in pain is wonderful..
Why not heroin, it would most likely kill the pain better?
Yes, in fact you did vote for wholesale drug trafficking and drug related problems. Either you are too foolish to see the consequences or believed the lies.
Doesn't quite have the same ring as, say, "Penicillin."
neighbors say members smoke pot on the street and cause traffic jams.
Yet another example of individuals who whine about their "rights" to do anything they please who could care less about the "rights" of those around them.
Not to mention The MightyQuin (Head shop) and that "Adult" Smut store.
Yeah, so much for the "legalize marijuana and the price will drop" theory. And this is for medical marijuana from compassionate people.
What's illegal going for in California? $200/oz.?
So much for, "What's wrong with smoking pot in the privacy of my own living room?"
Answer: Because that's not where you're smoking it.
If not, it's the only thing marijuana does not cure.
Same crowd that says they want to keep government out of their bedrooms, but try to make their bedroom all of the outdoors. Spoiled little brats from permissive and absent parents who are not accustomed to hearing the word "NO", and believe they are entitled to do what ever they please because "their rights trump yours". Like going through an national epidemic of the terrible two's with these selfish hedonist clowns.
What lies?
Answer: Because that's not where you're smoking it.
Some people drink in public, but that's not a good reason to ban alcohol. (Is it?)
Marijuana has not been legalized in CA. So much for your straw man.
Marijuana is nonlethal and far less addictive ... but opiates are legally prescribable to those who need them. What's your point?
Why not let people decide for themselves, or did we somehow all agree that Nannies with Badges will now decide what we can put in our bodies?
The lies that medical marijuana would just be for those that really need it in help with dealing with painful diseases. Like the guy mentioned in the article with the cane. Instead, the majority of people coming to the "clinic" have long-haired, healthy, twenty somethings coming into the dope office with doctor's note saying they need a bag of dope because they have halitosis. Hell, they have had to ban up to 20 people already. Of course, now people are trashing the neighborhood as well.
BTW, my previous post the "lies" I am referring to were made by proponents during the campaign of Prop 215 that this was just for the sick who could use it medically. I have always thought it was cover for the "legalize it" crowd.
Yeah, right, the members of the club are all undergoing chemotherapy. Wake up....
:(|)
This is the beginning of a three mile strip of Santa Rosa Avenue infested with drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, and pimps.
Not to mention The MightyQuin (Head shop) and that "Adult" Smut store.
It's also down the street from SRPD headquarters!
Many medicines are sometimes misprescribed; the answer is not to ban them. (And states could probably make more workable systems if the feds would butt out.)
See post #33.
"Unfortunately, I have to post and run, but the best line in the article is this--
"I voted for Prop. 215," Killion said. "But I didn't vote for wholesale drug trafficking in my neighborhood."
When you make a bargain with the devil what do you expect...?"
No. He voted for a patient to be able to be able to use a controlled substance under the direction of their doctor.
That is distinctly different that drug trafficing.
The problems is that the police in the area are not enforcing the law as it's written.
Why not let people decide for themselves, or did we somehow all agree that Nannies with Badges will now decide what we can put in our bodies?
So I guess you are stating that it should be legal for any person to use any drug they wanted?
What would that be?
No, there are drugs that despite being used "in the privacy of one's own abode" still have the potential of harming others. This centers around antimicrobials, specifically antibiotics. So many well-intentioned Moms insist that the pediatrician script out something for their sick kids so the pediatricians have been doleing out antibiotocs for kids with viral infections. What happens is that the bugs grow resistant to the antibiotics and this resistance is transferred to bugs that are not in those little kids.
So if there is a public health issue where the non-users suffer from the user's practice then I am agaisnt that.
Otherwise, yes, who the hell are you to tell me what I can and cannot put in my body?
I guess with that argument if you were/are a woman, what right does the government have to tell a woman what she can do to her body?
uh, I've heard that it's Medicinal Marijuana.
That may be what he voted for, but what he got was a group of doctors bending the law to give the chronically lazy a way to smoke pot legally.
I've an in-law near Susanville (who has spent more than one stay in the Susanville Correctional Facility for drug offenses) who has a prescription for medical marijuana. He has nonexistent back pains. He's working the system just like most of the members of the Santa Rosa medical marijuana club.
People like my brother-in-law are pathetic. The doctors who supply them with prescriptions might as well be street drug dealers-- "Gotta cough? Hangnail? Depressed that you can't legally smoke pot? Well, my prescription will cure your depression...."
Another head shop, Peace Pipe, is about 3 blocks from the Santa Rosa PD.....
This is true.
I wonder if the druggies on this forum support RU-486 for abortion... Since it seems that they wanna do whatever they want.
Yea, there are bad and corrupt doctors out there.
I suspect there are laws as well as ways for the medical profession to deal with them, if people complain loundly enough and have proof.
However, that peoblem is the same as with perscription drugs.
There are people who do have real medical problems for which pot can help them. If the federal government wasn't so stuck on the war on drugs, those people could get pot as a perscription, and we wouldn't have these poorly regulated or unregulated co-ops.
I agree that the current method there is poorly implemented.
I'd rather see the pot grown in a controlled, regulated environment.
I'm also not totally against legalizing it and taxing it, if proper methods of determinging when someone is inhibited by it's influence are developed. We would have to be able to tell if someone was driving under the influence of pot before legalizing it.
What I don't like is this half-legal gray market that's been created. However, it's CA. If the voters get sick of the implementation, they can force a change.
I hear you, and agree.
I noticed that too. I bet he assigned Sgt Bong to the case.
sells for about $45 for an eighth-ounce bag at 200 customers a day, not bad.
Minimum daily take: $9,000 for home-grown.
In a week, that's $63,000.
In a month, that's $1,890,000
Annually, that's $22,680,000.
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