Questions, but few answers

 “If I had to make a choice between no advice and biased advice, I’d choose biased advice because I think there is a desperate need for it.”

—Barbara Roper

Two meetings down with three to go, the San Diego City Council-appointed Medical Marijuana Task Force finds itself wondering aloud what it’s going to take to get some city leaders to talk zoning with the panel.

With the exception of a few vague opinions from a deputy city attorney and rather boilerplate analysis from staffers of the council’s Office of the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA), some task force members have had just about enough of the silent treatment from Mayor Jerry Sanders, Police Chief William Lansdowne and the city’s Development Services Department (DSD).

“The problem here, it seems, is that we don’t have the people in front of us who can answer our questions,” task force member Larry Sweet lamented during Friday’s meeting at City Hall. “And it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen.”

Given the responsibility by year’s end to advise the City Council on how best to define zoning and land-use laws for medical-marijuana collectives and cooperatives in an atmosphere statewide that is anything but defined, the 11-member panel faces an uphill battle as it is without the added burden of city leadership in absentia.

The frustration bubbled to the surface Friday while the task force tried to unravel some confusing language emanating in memo form from Development Services head honcho Kelly Broughton, who didn’t attend the meeting. Instead, an IBA staffer reported, he requested questions be “presented as a written list.”

As task force member Stephen Whitburn saw it, based on his reading of two separate memos from Broughton, “DSD says that its role is not to determine the legality of products or services being sold, but when asked what use category would be appropriate for dispensaries, DSD says none, that they’re illegal because they sell marijuana.”

The irony, of course, is Broughton & Co. rarely find much fault with any type of development proposal brought through its doors. In fact, his department has suffered significant staffing cutbacks—paid for through the fees it collects—since the building industry went into economic hibernation.

So, when task force members like Sweet, a medi-pot patient and advocate, ask why, for example, DSD claims there’s no appropriate land-use category for collectives while the City Treasurer’s Office lists at least nine local businesses under the specific heading “medical marijuana dispensaries,” it’s pretty easy to start wondering if somebody’s doing their darnedest to gum up this process.

Spin Cycle tried to contact Broughton for an answer, but he did not respond to phone messages or e-mails.

But after reviewing the business-tax certificate documents for one San Diego-based collective, it’s apparent that the buck stops dead at the front door of the San Diego Police Department.

Included in the paperwork is a letter from DSD, explaining that even though the applicant has in her hand a business-tax certificate, her proposed collective can’t be permitted until she first obtains a permit from SDPD, “since your application mentions in the Activity Description part, the sale of medical cannabis or marijuana.”

Adela Falk, the cane-reliant, 32-year-old applicant who has suffered since childhood from Graves disease, a debilitating autoimmune illness, said when she went to police headquarters to inquire about the permit, she was simply told to leave.

“They wouldn’t even talk to me,” Falk said, her voice bristling with emotion. “It would be nice to have safe access [to medical marijuana] in my neighborhood.”

Yes, silence is contagious, particularly when it starts at the top.

It’ll be interesting to see if that silence is broken now that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has handed down a new directive that appears to lower the priority—if not completely eliminate the threat—of federal raids on legitimate, state-law-abiding medi-pot outlets. Heck, the title of the Monday memo is “Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana” for cryin’ out loud. 

“As a general matter,” Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden declared to all U.S. attorneys, “pursuit of these priorities should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

SDPD officials don’t think it’s a game changer. CityBeat reported earlier, on Lastblogonearth.com, that 105 local police personnel participated in the Sept. 9 raids of 11 city medi-pot outlets. So far, only one charge—for an unrelated outstanding DUI warrant—has been brought as a result of the city raids.

“Today’s DOJ directive has absolutely no impact on how the SDPD will approach the issue of medical marijuana,” police-chief counsel Paul E. Cooper e-mailed to Spin Cycle on Monday. “The directive is intended for federal prosecutors in States that have enacted laws authorizing the medical use of marijuana and has no impact [on] local law enforcement agencies.

“The SDPD has and will continue to enforce state law in this area.”

Spin Cycle then wrote back, asking Cooper how SDPD would be making efforts to assist those folks who are trying to follow state law and begging for guidance. “I am unaware of any ‘legitimate collectives or cooperatives’ in San Diego,” Cooper responded. As to the police permit, he said “no such permit exists.”

Meanwhile, District Attorney Bonnie “Raid ’Em If You Got ’Em” Dumanis, offered not a peep to Spin Cycle about the new federal marching orders. But she did downplay it for the Union-Tribune, sniffing, “It’s not a great triumph for legalizing marijuana.”

And, of course, no one said it was. Thanks, oh great prosecutorial leader!

Craig Beresh, president of the Southern California chapter of NORML, said he doesn’t expect much change in attitude in San Diego in the short term. “I’m hearing from collective people who think, It might be great for the rest of the state, but I don’t know how great it’s going to be for San Diego.”

Added Beresh: “We won’t have to worry about the feds coming in probably, but we still have to deal with Bonnie’s attitude.”

However, he is hopeful that at the next task force meeting—9 to 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, on the 12th floor of City Hall, 202 C St.—the changing landscape might finally elicit some answers.

“I would think so,” he agreed.

Got a tip? Send it to johnl@sdcitybeat.com.

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