cannabisnews.com: S.C. Leaders To Decide Whether To Allow Dispensary





S.C. Leaders To Decide Whether To Allow Dispensary
Posted by CN Staff on July 23, 2005 at 06:21:50 PT
By Shanna McCord , Sentinel Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel
Santa Cruz -- The city nationally recognized as a medical-marijuana booster— including a law on the books sympathetic to the cause since 2000 — may soon see its first medical-marijuana shop.A proposal for a medical marijuana outlet on DuBois Street in the Harvey West Business Park sailed through the Planning Commission.
Commissioners voted 5-0 Wednesday night, with members Deanna Purnell and William Schultz absent, to approve a special-use permit for Boulder Creek resident Lisa Molyneux to operate Greenway, a medical marijuana dispensary.Molyneux’s plans must now pass the City Council, which will consider the issue Tuesday. Molyneux, who has been renting an empty 5,000-square-foot office for several months to house the dispensary, agreed to a list of conditions to help Greenway "be a good neighbor" to the Harvey West area.Patrick O’Hara, chief executive of Ambios Technology on Pioneer Street, three blocks from Dubois Street, was the only person to speak against the dispensary.O’Hara, disappointed in the outcome, said a pot shop, even for seriously ill people, sends the wrong message about Santa Cruz to the greater business community. "The impression of business executives I know in the Silicon Valley is that this is not a place for serious business. They think anything goes in Santa Cruz," O’Hara said. "Santa Cruz isn’t presenting itself as a place conducive to anything but drugs, derelicts and homeless people."However, Molyneux, a thyroid cancer patient in remission, says she’ll run Greenway in a manner that will ease the fears of critics.Greenway would operate 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and be watched by a security guard. All marijuana buyers and sellers would be required to show a valid card sanctioned by the state Health Department.Using the medication in the office or the parking lot would not be allowed and loitering would be prohibited. Problem individuals would be "blacklisted.""We want to be low-key and not be a burden," Molyneux said.The Planning Commission stipulated that a review take place six months after opening to identify possible problems.Commissioner Rod Quartararo expressed reservations about how the city’s ordinance fits with the federal law, which forbids the use of marijuana even for medical reasons.Quartararo was also concerned with issues raised in a letter from police Lt. Rudy Escalante, who recommended the commission deny the proposal because the dispensary would be within 600 feet of the Wagoner Grove area. Wagoner Grove is popular for swimming, barbecues and youth activities."The area near Wagoner Grove (already) receives regular complaints of drinking and drug use by persons who frequent the homeless shelter," Escalante wrote. "The proposed use will adversely affect the health, safety and welfare of the businesses in the area."No one from the Police Department attended the Planning Commission meeting.Commissioner Kaitilin Gaffney said the dispensary would "be a strong public benefit," saving the county’s estimated 4,000 medical marijuana patients from making "the hellacious trek through Fremont and 880 traffic just to hold their food down."The difficulty of finding sympathetic landlords has delayed the opening of a medical marijuana dispensary because the city strictly limits where such businesses locate, Gaffney said."This is a real Catch-22," she said. "We say we want this kind of business, but there’s no room at the end to allow this. If not Harvey West, where else is it going to go?"Mayor Mike Rotkin said he expects the dispensary to "sail through the City Council as well."What’s next for proposed pot shop:The Santa Cruz City Council will listen to public comment, then vote on the issue, starting at 3 p.m. Tuesday.Owner Lisa Molyneux must obtain a business license to operate in the city.Security details must be reviewed by the Police Department.Complete Title: Santa Cruz Leaders To Decide Whether To Allow Medical-Marijuana DispensarySource: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)Author: Shanna McCord , Sentinel Staff WriterPublished: July 23, 2005 Copyright: 2005 Santa Cruz SentinelContact: editorial santa-cruz.comWebsite: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/Related Articles & Web Site:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/Pot Co-op’s Pleas Fall on Deaf Ears at City Hallhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20514.shtmlCity Shuts Marijuana Co-ophttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20458.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by runruff on July 24, 2005 at 10:51:09 PT:
Jose
Right arm. Farm out. Gravy man.
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Comment #5 posted by jose melendez on July 24, 2005 at 10:07:48 PT
Got Criminals? State Department Fraud Exposed
"the vast majority of politicians are unwilling to take on legalization in any serious way."The State Department official said neither Mexico nor the United States can afford to let up despite the prospect of "a long, vicious, difficult struggle.""What's the alternative? Just let them do whatever they want and we won't have the violence? No, because then you'll end up with complete control by criminal elements. I certainly don't want to belittle the sacrifices ... but do you really want organized crime running your country?" from: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1072/a08.html
 "The anonymous State Department official quoted in "Mexico's fight against drugs is a failure, analysts say" ( July 4 ) uses an intellectually dishonest technique, classically known as the logical fallacy of a false dilemma.By presenting two possible solutions ( continue waging war on citizens over which intoxicants or medications they choose to use, or yield societal control to criminal elements ) as the only answers to drug policy issues, our paid public servant carefully ignores the fact that it is prohibition that causes societal harm, and not the drugs themselves."(snip) 
source: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1164/a04.html
Concerned Citizens Coalition to Criminalize Prohibition 
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Comment #4 posted by afterburner on July 24, 2005 at 07:34:41 PT
Off Topic, or Maybe Not!
Your morning smile:Do Not Meet the Press: A Karl Rove production
http://tinyurl.com/82bat Toronto Star (free registration)Sound the gong, alarming picture of attack on separation of church and state, attack on democracy, rise of global authoritarianism. (We know how cannabis patients, devotees, and celebrants are view by the "religious" right warriors.):Rapture politics
Jul. 24, 2005. 08:13 AMThey have been called 'opportunistic ayatollahs' and 'power Puritans.' They are the evangelical American politicians who believe the United States is the kingdom of God and that the next Supreme Court appointee must reflect their radical religious views. People who believe in the separation of church and state have to fight back now, writes Henry A. Giroux.  [Full Story]
http://tinyurl.com/b5hp2 Toronto Star (free registration)Long Excerpt:{Furthermore, in a world in which the state has abandoned its welfare-bearing role, a global social order has emerged that lacks both a sense of moral purpose and a meaningful sense of the future. The future has now become the enemy, as short-term gains become the only viable language of the market.{Collective security from poverty, illness, old age, unemployment and the loss of the most basic social provisions such as health care and a decent education have been replaced by market forces that view misfortune with disdain and welfare institutions as a poisonous reminder of Marxist orthodoxy. Deregulation, fragmentation, privatization, rabid individualism, uncertainty and outsourcing are now the order of the day, and one consequence is a world that increasingly appears inhospitable, insecure and unnerving. (These ideas are drawn from Zygmunt Bauman's Identity.)
 {As long as politics fails to provide a sense of meaning, purpose and dignity to people's lives, religious fundamentalists will step in and take up this task. As long as neoliberal capitalism rules the global social order and the future no longer provides a referent for addressing matters of social justice inspired by a discourse of hope, fundamentalisms of all stripes will flourish in the United States and elsewhere around the globe.{If democratic politics and secular humanism are worth fighting for, educators, concerned citizens and parents need more than a language of critique, they need a language of possibility.{Such a discourse should both challenge the anti-democratic values claimed by the right and offer up a notion of moral values in which "care and responsibility, fairness and equality, freedom and courage, fulfilment in life, opportunity and community, cooperation and trust, honesty and openness" are wedded to the principles of justice, equality, and freedom, as George Lakoff wrote in The Nation last December.{The writer Barbara Ehrenreich is right on target in arguing that progressives need to "articulate poverty and war as the urgent moral issues they are. Jesus is on our side here, and secular liberals should not be afraid to invoke him. Policies of pre-emptive war and the upward redistribution of wealth are inversions of the Judeo-Christian ethic. At the very least, we need a firm commitment to public forms of childcare, health care, housing and education — for people of all faiths and no faith at all."{As well, identity must be experienced beyond the atomizing call of market forces. {For identity to become meaningful in a democratic society, it must be nourished through a connection to others, a respect for social justice, and a recognition of the need to work with others to experience both a sense of collective joy and a measure of social responsibility. {There is a need for educators, artists, parents and activists to not only defend democratic public spheres but to develop alternative ones where the language and practice of democratic community, public values, civic engagement, and social justice can be taught, learned and experienced. {Public and higher education not only offer a space where dialogue and the expansion of the intellect can be encouraged, but also prepare students as critical agents capable of making good on the promise of a substantive and inclusive democracy.{At the same time, democracy needs to be supported and nourished across a wide range of overlapping sites — from film, television, and the Internet to talk radio — that engage in diverse forms of public pedagogy.{Authoritarianism takes many forms; its most recent expression in the merging of politics and religion appears to be gaining ground through the relentless force of a moral-values crusade in the U.S. and abroad. Not only are the basic principles of reason and freedom being undermined, but the very idea of democracy is under assault.{The war against reason, secular humanism and democratic values is being fought intensively on the cultural front — in the media, schools, churches and other sites of pubic pedagogy. What is at stake here is the challenge of rethinking the very meaning of politics and democracy for the 21st century.}[Full Story] http://tinyurl.com/b5hp2 Toronto Star (free registration)
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Comment #3 posted by runruff on July 23, 2005 at 14:38:18 PT:
And........
Try this one also.
http://bushwatch.com
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Comment #2 posted by runruff on July 23, 2005 at 14:34:36 PT:
Opps, try this one.
Left out one dot.
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#cocaine
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Comment #1 posted by runruff on July 23, 2005 at 14:31:03 PT:
Hoover nose W.
This idiot is sending people to prision left and right.
http://www.realchange.org/bushjrhtm#cocaine
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