Ross Mirkarimi said he wanted to introduce the legislation in 2005 with laws regulating pot clubs.
Posted on 04/15/2009 7:49:36 AM PDT by SmithL
San Francisco would be the first city in the nation to sell and distribute medical marijuana under legislation proposed Tuesday by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
Mirkarimi, who spearheaded legislation more than three years ago to regulate the city's proliferating medical marijuana dispensaries, asked the city attorney to craft a measure that would create a pilot program for medical cannabis sales. The details are still being worked out, Mirkarimi said, but he envisions a pilot program under which the Department of Public Health could distribute pot to medical marijuana patients of city clinics.
Mirkarimi called the legislation the "next step" toward codifying the state laws that legalized medical marijuana, adding that he wanted to introduce the legislation in 2005 when the city was passing the laws regulating the city's marijuana clubs. But he said he waited out of concern that federal law does not recognize California's legalization of medical marijuana.
However, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that federal authorities would prosecute only "those people who violate both federal and state law," implying that the government no longer would try to shut down California pot dispensaries.
"We're spending much more money keeping marijuana underground, trying to hide a fact that is occurring all around us," Mirkarimi said. "Now is the time to take responsibility for something we've deflected to others and to test our ability to take responsibility."
Mayor Gavin Newsom's office wasn't so sure. Although the mayor supports medical marijuana, Newsom has said he does not favor efforts to legalize pot, and his office was noncommittal about the proposal for the city to sell it.
"The mayor will have to hash this out with public health officials," press secretary Nathan Ballard said. "It's the mayor's job to weed out bad legislation. And to be blunt, this sounds pretty bad."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
And Barack Obama will call together his Joint Chiefs.
Why the stuff is still illegal I’ll never understand.
Look at what they are doing to tobacco these days...
When in doubt, follow the money. There are a lot of special interests, government and private, which make a lot of money because it is illegal. Think of the "asset forfeitures", the Mexican pot gangs, the money set-asides for the drug warriors.
From a systems point of view, this is a bistable economic situation. If it were legal, and taxed relative to production costs like, say alcohol or tobacco, the money flow would be large, but different, and the government would tax, control, and protect it!
Not to fret, Tom Ammiano has his back on this one. ;-)
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