Will you support the Santa Ana medical marijuana dispensary initiative?

“Proponents of medical marijuana have begun collecting signatures to let Santa Ana voters decide whether the city should allow dispensaries to operate in the city” according to the O.C. Register.

The initiative’s signature gathering is being coordinated by Debbie Tharp, a Libertarian who has run for the State Assembly.  She has since become an expert on ballot measure signature gathering and is making a living off such campaigns.  I ran into one of her signature gatherers a week ago at an Albertson’s on 17th and Tustin Ave.  The Albertson’s manager asked him to move back away from the entrance and he did so.  Tharp herself was arrested a few weeks ago while gathering signatures in front of a Mother’s Market in Costa Mesa.

“While Santa Ana’s 2007 ban on the storefront collectives has done little to stunt the growth of this fast-growing industry. The ban itself has allowed the city to send around their inspectors and handout fines to those collectives which ignored the cities “cease and desist order.” Thereby causing financial hardship and forcing them to close down,” according to Marijuana.com.

“The City presented the title and summary on July 31, 2012 for The Medical Cannabis Restriction and Limitation Initiative giving the proponents 180 days to collect the needed signatures to qualify for a special election or the next regular election in 2014,” according to the ballot measure campaign’s website.  That means they must finish gathering signatures by the end of September.

 You can read the proposed act here. The City of Santa Ana has set up an information page about the ballot measure here.

The proposed measure would limit collectives to certain commercial and industrial zones, and allow only those operating before Dec. 31, 2011, to continue. Under terms of the measure, dispensaries would be banned within 600 feet of K-12 classrooms and in residential areas. It also sets out standards for security and would require dispensaries to meet requirements established in 2008 by the state Attorney General’s Office. Only members of a collective could buy medical marijuana and only marijuana grown by the collective or provided by a patient would be allowed for sale.

Will you support this initiative?  I signed the petition.  Will you?

Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.
Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

View Comments

  • I have many friends in their late teens and early twentys here in Santa Ana that suffer from neurogenic pain, asthma, glaucoma, inflammatory bowel disease, migraines, fibromyalgia, and related conditions.

    For them to be able to find dispensarys here in Santa Ana would really enhance the quality of their lives. When they see the Green Cross on a door it means that help is on the way.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLONl4cNc

    • Marijuana doesn't help asthma. It incinerates the lungs . Are you serious. So many ailments comes later in life after smoking pot .

  • Just what we in Santa Ana need. More criminals.

    How many more people are going to come to Santa ana and blow thu intersections at 60 plus miles an hour, running down and killing women and children.

    • People who use medical pot are not criminals.

      That white lady you are referencing was drunk, not high. Maybe we should ban drunk white people from out of town? Say goodbye to the Art Walk in that case.

      • I expect that when the trial is held, we will learn she traveled a hundcred plus miles to pick the party MJ for the drunks at home.

        And the sellers are the criminals, and they break the law every day they are selling.

        And since there is no place in the USA to legally grow MJ to sell, well you get it right.

    • It has never changed . Marijuana leads to other drugs . The "clinic" less than 600 feet behind my nice residential neighborhood has young people going in and out all hours of the night. True you cannot always tell if someone is sick, but if they really are sick , let them go to a doctor instead of using recreational drugs. They are always "party " loud", leave their garbage all over the parking lot. They light up right in the lot. The fumes are very evident. I have found used needles at the end of the street , proving they are not just "using" their "medicine" only. Their have been 2 robberies in the neighborhood since the "clinic" opened. Our children pass the front doors everyday after school . All clinics should be ordered into a field . It is where weed belongs . When a city allows drugs to make revenue , it is the beginning of it's demise. Greater cities than Santa Ana have gone down. I grew up in Stockton, and now it is one of the worst high crime and drug cities in America. I want these "businesses OUT OF MY NEIGHBORHOOD , and will do everything I can to initiate it. If you are interested in a sidewalk boycott of this clinic being too close to the neighborhood or want to sign a petition. {The clinic is at 522 North Grand in Santa Ana.} Please phone City councilman Benevides to state your objections and complaints over the clinics Ask for Marty, 1714 6475200

  • "Just please don’t show us what happens behind the closed doors of our local politicians’ homes…"

    Well spoken Art! Or their office doors when they are Orange County Managers!

      • Oh wait . Is Debbie Tharp still in jail? Proving once again, A majority of clear headed people still don't want the fog of pot wafting around their neighborhoods and schools . Please !!!!!!!!!!!!! Do your drugs . But please take them out into the fields with the weeds (redundant .. yeah I know.

  • Yes. I will.

    And since I actually live here it will be my responsibility.

    Unless of course I decide to move to Orange Park Acres, Irvine, Brea or Long Beach, in which case I will become EXTREMELY vocal and begin to recite to the citizens of this fine city what they should do.

    Perhaps, I'll even register as a Republican that way I can really interfere in a largely democratic election.

    As for Cook, Robin continues to intruge me, defending Benavides run and now referring to Medical Marijuana as MJ, Is that code for "Mary Jane", are we gonna score some "reefer", what about we roll some "bones".

    Come on Cook, this is 2012, and in a city that has LOST HUNDREDS of young people due to gang violence, you pick a sole women, high on drugs as the target. I expect more from you. I respect you. But, come on.

    Maybe we should shutdown Townsend street (Lomeli, I can give you directions to the neighborhoods we discuss here).

    Yeah I thought so

    • Nice Cappetbagger,
      For the rights of few who toke and drive (and drink too)

      the sacrifice of Latino women and children on the roads of Santa Ana is a necessary evil.

      Well I don’t see it that way, and expect that the majority of the voting population will not either.

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