Some Say It’s Time to Rethink Cannabis Regulation
Approach the squat, green-and-white building at a busy corner in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Palms, and you might be tempted to order two pieces of Original Recipe. On closer inspection, one sees that what used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken store is no longer, and that KFC now stands for “Kind for Cures.”
Kind for Cures sports a green cross in the window and offers medical marijuana to Californians with valid physician recommendations. But whether Kind for Cures is legal depends on whom you ask
Jane Usher, a special assistant attorney in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, says that Kind for Cures has “no right to operate in Los Angeles,” under a 2010 city ordinance that limited the number of medical marijuana collectives in the city and set strict controls for their operations. Kind for Cures did not respond to inquiries from the ABA Journal. But its Facebook page and website suggest it is still in operation between 10 a.m. and midnight daily, dispensing products with names like Kona, South Park Kush and Train Wreck. It accepts bank debit cards, MasterCard and Visa.
In some ways, Kind for Cures is the perfect progeny of a 14-year-old California law intended to provide legal cannabis for those suffering painful or debilitating disease. Whether this particular dispensary serves a medically necessary purpose to an actual, underserved patient base is open to question. Where and how it gets its colorfully named product is unknown to those who are supposed to regulate it. And whether it is operating legally—or at all—is left open to speculation, even by those who are responsible for its operation.
Continue reading “Up in Smoke” in the December ABA Journal.
Also see related sidebar “Medical Marijuana Is No Get-Rich-Quick Scheme.”
