League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
	Santa Barbara County, CA November 2, 2010 Election
	Measure T-2010 Prohibition of Storefront Marijuana Dispensaries City of Santa Barbara Majority Approval Required Fail: 11279 / 38.76% Yes votes ...... 17818 / 61.24% No votes See Also: Index of all Measures

Arguments For Measure T-2010

Arguments Against Measure T-2010

A YES vote will prohibit marijuana stores in the City of Santa Barbara. A YES vote means that the City of Santa Barbara will join a growing list of 193 cities and 9 counties in the State who have banned marijuana stores. A YES vote banning marijuana stores will protect youth and other vulnerable segments of our community from the problem of having stores selling marijuana in the city to those as young as 18 years old. Allowing such stores sends the wrong message to our young people about access to gateway drugs like marijuana. A YES vote will promote Santa Barbara's world-wide image as an attractive and welcoming place to visit. We do not want Santa Barbara to be known as the pot shop capital of the Central Coast, as it is described in marijuana community literature. A YES vote will help prevent the retail "sale" of medical marijuana, which is prohibited under state law. A YES vote banning marijuana stores in Santa Barbara is supported by our medical and educational communities, all law enforcement officials, parents, non-profit outreach groups, and business and civic leaders including three members of the City Council. A YES vote will not deny seriously ill patients from access to medical marijuana. State law allows patients and their care givers to grow and use marijuana, and non-profit collectives made up of patients and care givers to grow and share marijuana with their patient members. As reported by Police Captain Martel in the July 4, 2010 News Press, such collectives legally exist in Santa Barbara. Please vote YES on November 2 to ban marijuana stores in Santa Barbara. YES TO BAN MARIJUANA STORES IN SANTA BARBARA Committee Marty Blum, former Mayor of Santa Barbara; Bob Bryant, Businessman; John D. Wrench, M.D.; William J. Cirone, Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools Rebuttal to Arguments For Banning medical marijuana dispensaries will deprive seriously ill people of medicine that they need to live, and endanger the city at large. A ban of legal, carefully regulated dispensaries will increase the supply of illegal marijuana in our community. Street dealers, who stand to profit immensely from a ban, are the real danger to our children. The unregulated black market will flourish under a ban, exposing our youth to dangerous and truly harmful drugs. The City Council recently enacted an ordinance that is one of the strictest in California. The three permitted non-profit dispensaries will not serve minors and are subject to regular inspection by city officials who will ensure they are in full compliance with the law. A ban would invalidate this control and leave the city powerless to regulate medical marijuana. Dispensaries are not "marijuana stores," as the initiative's proponents mischaracterize them. They are simply legal collectives that operate in a commercial area, which is where they belong. A ban would force these collectives out of commercial districts and into our residential neighborhoods. Seriously ill patients are unable to grow their own plants and need safe access to dispensaries to treat their conditions. Denying people the medical treatment they need sends the wrong message to the youth and will hurt Santa Barbara's reputation as a sensible, progressive, and compassionate community. Thousands of Santa Barbara citizens benefit from safe access to medical marijuana. Do the right thing for all of us. Vote "NO" on Measure T. Rob Egenolf; Peggy Jo Love House, Breast Cancer Patient; Roger Horton, Former Santa Barbara City Councilmember; Beverly D. Brott, M.D., Board Certified Internist, Breast Cancer Patient

We urge you to vote "NO" on the ban of medical dispensaries. Until pharmacies are once again allowed to dispense medicinal marijuana, as they did for 50 years in the United States, dispensaries must fill the role to provide safe access to medicine for seriously ill people. They are often the only option for patients who face a sudden diagnosis and must begin immediate treatment. Maintaining access to a limited number of dispensaries is the safe, sensible solution, and it is the right thing to do. Without legal, licensed, and strictly regulated dispensaries, patients who cannot grow their own plants because they are physically unable are forced to seek marijuana from street dealers. This endangers patients as well as the community at large. The city recently enacted strict regulations, limiting the number of dispensaries to three tightly regulated, non-profit collectives. This ordinance is among the toughest in the State of Califoria. Under the new ordinance, dispensaries are only permitted to serve qualified adult patients, living in our county, who have legitimate recommendations from a doctor who is currently licensed by the Medical Board of California. YOU CANNOT SUPPORT THE COMPASSIONATE USE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA WITHOUT SUPPORTING A REASONABLE SUPPLY SYSTEM. The strict ordinance recently adopted by the City Council has put such a system in place. Santa Barbara deserves safe access. Do the right thing. Say no to street dealers. Vote "NO" on the ban. Vote "NO" on Measure T. Joseph Allen, Former District Attorney, Santa Barbara Voters For Sensible Regulations Chair; Dr. Steve Hosea, Associate Director of Internal Medicine education, Cottage Hospital; Anne Brown, Brain Cancer Survivor; Frank Frost, Former Santa Barbara County Supervisor; Gil Garcia, Former Santa Barbara City Councilmember Rebuttal to Arguments Against Marijuana store supporters against Measure T use untruths and scare tactics when claiming that Measure T will prevent safe access to medical marijuana and force individuals to get marijuana from street dealers. Don't be fooled! As the City Attorney says in his impartial analysis in this pamphlet, Measure T will NOT affect the rights of Qualified Patients under State law. State law gives seriously ill patients safe access to medical marijuana by allowing those patients and/or their caregivers to grow and use marijuana, or for patients and caregivers in non-profit collectives to grow and share marijuana among the collective's patients. Measure T preserves that legal, reasonable, and safe access to medical marijuana. Non-profit collectives growing and distributing marijuana to their seriously ill patients have existed in Santa Barbara for years. They operate legally today. Measure T won't change that. Marijuana store supporters have no evidence of qualified patients buying marijuana from street dealers. Those patients (or their caregivers) can grow marijuana legally themselves, or be members of a non-profit collective that grows and provides marijuana to them. The Police Department and local media report that the biggest crimes around marijuana occur at retail marijuana stores (which Measure T will ban). The District Attorney states that marijuana stores attract criminal activity. If we don't ban retail marijuana stores, and Santa Barbara remains the only city in the tri-counties which allows them, we can expect even more marijuana related crime. Why would we want this? Protect our City! vote YES on Measure T! Marty Blum, former Mayor of Santa Barbara; Bill Cirone, County Superintendent of Schools; Dale Francisco, Santa Barbara City Council member; Christopher Flynn, M.D.

Full Text of Measure T-2010

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SANTA BARBARA AMENDING THE MUNICIPAL CODE BY REPEALING THE EXISTING CHAPTER 28.80 AND TO PROHIBIT THE OPERATION OR MAINTENANCE OF STOREFRONT MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES WITHIN THE CITY OF SANTA BARBARA. WHEREAS, it has been the purpose and intent of Chapter 28.80 of the Santa Barbara Municipal Code to regulate the storefront distribution of medical marijuana in a manner which ensures the health, safety, and welfare of the residents of the City of Santa Barbara and which, at the same time, makes certain that all storefront medical marijuana dispensaries comply with the requirements of state law at all times; WHEREAS, the regulations of Santa Barbra Municipal Code Chapter 28.80, in compliance with the statutory requirements established by the state Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the State Medical Marijuana Program Act enacted in 2003 (state Health and Safety Code sections 11362.7 through 11362.9 - "the MMP Act"), are not intended to interfere in any way with a patient's right to obtain or use medical marijuana as allowed by state law nor do the City's regulations in any way criminalize the possession or cultivation or transfer of medical marijuana by "primary caregivers" as such possession, cultivation, or transfer may be authorized under the specific circumstances permitted in the Compassionate Use Act; WHEREAS, under the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the MMP Act, only "qualified patients," "persons with identification cards," and "primary caregivers" may cultivate medical marijuana, whether individually or collectively, and only "primary caregivers" may provide it to "qualified patients" or "persons with identifications cards" without fear of state criminal sanctions; WHEREAS, those medical marijuana collectives within the City which choose to provide medical marijuana to their collective members (as "qualified patients" or "persons with identification cards") do not necessarily need to operate or maintain a storefront location in order to do so in a manner consistent with intent and purposes of the state Compassionate Use Act; WHEREAS, in recent years, the residents of the City have experienced health, safety, and welfare problems involving the use of marijuana and many of these problems raise public nuisance concerns relating directly to the on-going operation of some storefront medical marijuana dispensaries under circumstances where the dispensaries purport to comply with the Compassionate Use Act but which, in fact, do not comply with either the Compassionate Use Act and the MMP Act, especially with respect to the illegal distribution or for-profit sale of marijuana to those persons who do not qualify to use or possess medical marijuana; WHEREAS, Article XI, Sections 5 and 7 of the state Constitution grants the City of Santa Barbara, as a charter city, the plenary police power authority with respect to its own local municipal affairs, particularly with respect to local zoning, land use, and public nuisance concerns so long as Santa Barbara's local police power authority is used in such a way that does not conflict with general state laws which are intended to be of preemptive statewide effect and application; and WHEREAS, nothing in either the Compassionate Use Act or the MMP Act expressly allows or permits or requires a city to allow or permit the use of real property for the distribution of medical marijuana at storefront locations and, consequently, nothing in state law precludes a charter city from regulating or prohibiting, where necessary and advisable, the use of storefront locations when those locations are being used to distribute medical marijuana. NOW THEREFORE, THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF SANTA BARBARA DO ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS: SECTION ONE. Chapter 28.80 of Title 28 of the Santa Barbara Municipal Code (a portion of the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Santa Barbara), entitled "Medical Marijuana Storefront Dispensaries," is hereby repealed in its entirety and Santa Barbara Municipal Code Title 28 is amended to enact a new Santa Barbara Municipal Code Chapter, Chapter 28.80, which shall read as follows: Section 28.80.010 Prohibition on the Use of Real Property to Operate or Maintain a Storefront Medical Marijuana Dispensary. A. Prohibition on the Use of Storefronts. It shall be unlawful to use any real property within the City to operate or maintain a storefront for the purposes of using that real property to distribute or transfer medical marijuana to any person. B. Consistency with the State Compassionate Use Act. Nothing herein shall be interpreted or applied to deny any person the right to possess or use medical marijuana, or the ability to assist another person in obtaining the lawful possession of medical marijuana, as such rights and abilities may be granted by the state Compassionate Use Act of 1996 or by state Health and Safety Code sections 11362.7 through 11362.9.