buckaroo bonzai
Well-Known Member
glimpse of the future-
-wonder if the dispensary proponents realize what they are setting themselves up for--??
--and us!
EDITORIAL: Medical marijuana dispensaries have a placePosted Aug 09, 2013 @ 08:47 AM
The new Massachusetts Medical Marijuana law passed at the polls in 2012 has put cities and towns around the commonwealth into zoning overdrive, as communities try to manage and control exactly where a dispensary might be located within their borders.
Danvers, for example, has plans for regulating medical marijuana dispensaries targeted for its spring Town Meeting.
Ipswich isn’t waiting that long and has regulations ready for its fall Town Meeting.
Certainly, planning exactly where such dispensaries would be located is important. Proximity to schools, residential areas and churches and considering other issues that any business brings such as traffic and noise are important to managing the quality of life in a community.
At the same time, some of these regulation efforts smack of a not-in-my-backyard mentality at best and hypocrisy at worst.
Writing regulations so strictly as to constrict the location of any medical marijuana dispensary to a lot the size of postage stamp underneath a swamp isn’t complying with the wishes of Massachusetts voters — it’s doing an end run around the law voters approved.
Proposed Ipswich regulations would bar a dispensary from being located within 1,000 feet of a school, childcare center, rehabilitation or correctional facility, a playground or athletic fields. Nor could a dispensary be located in the same building as a residential unit or a doctor’s office.
Communities should remember the medical marijuana law passed at the polls 63 percent to 37 percent, a landslide approval.
So somebody voted for medical marijuana.
Yet some communities seem to want to appear they are, if not against medical marijuana, at least holding their noses as they allow it.
It’s also important to understand the state strictly state regulates medical marijuana dispensaries requiring them to be non-profit, requiring $500,000 in upfront “liquid” assets and another $31,000 in application fees and limiting the number of dispensaries to no more than 35 throughout the state, with at least one in each county, not to exceed five in any single county.
So, it’s not as if any community is going to have a “medical marijuana row” within its borders.
Legally, voters settled the question of whether marijuana has medical uses in 2012.
The law requires patients to have essentially a doctor’s note explaining the reason for their need for medical marijuana and to have been diagnosed with a “debilitating” medical condition such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV-positive status or AIDS, hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS or multiple sclerosis.
Clearly those applying to open a medical marijuana dispensary are business people hoping to run legal, legitimate businesses, facing a significant upfront investment and willing to operate under tight state control.
Communities should treat them as such.
-wonder if the dispensary proponents realize what they are setting themselves up for--??
--and us!
EDITORIAL: Medical marijuana dispensaries have a placePosted Aug 09, 2013 @ 08:47 AMThe new Massachusetts Medical Marijuana law passed at the polls in 2012 has put cities and towns around the commonwealth into zoning overdrive, as communities try to manage and control exactly where a dispensary might be located within their borders.
Danvers, for example, has plans for regulating medical marijuana dispensaries targeted for its spring Town Meeting.
Ipswich isn’t waiting that long and has regulations ready for its fall Town Meeting.
Certainly, planning exactly where such dispensaries would be located is important. Proximity to schools, residential areas and churches and considering other issues that any business brings such as traffic and noise are important to managing the quality of life in a community.
At the same time, some of these regulation efforts smack of a not-in-my-backyard mentality at best and hypocrisy at worst.
Writing regulations so strictly as to constrict the location of any medical marijuana dispensary to a lot the size of postage stamp underneath a swamp isn’t complying with the wishes of Massachusetts voters — it’s doing an end run around the law voters approved.
Proposed Ipswich regulations would bar a dispensary from being located within 1,000 feet of a school, childcare center, rehabilitation or correctional facility, a playground or athletic fields. Nor could a dispensary be located in the same building as a residential unit or a doctor’s office.
Communities should remember the medical marijuana law passed at the polls 63 percent to 37 percent, a landslide approval.
So somebody voted for medical marijuana.
Yet some communities seem to want to appear they are, if not against medical marijuana, at least holding their noses as they allow it.
It’s also important to understand the state strictly state regulates medical marijuana dispensaries requiring them to be non-profit, requiring $500,000 in upfront “liquid” assets and another $31,000 in application fees and limiting the number of dispensaries to no more than 35 throughout the state, with at least one in each county, not to exceed five in any single county.
So, it’s not as if any community is going to have a “medical marijuana row” within its borders.
Legally, voters settled the question of whether marijuana has medical uses in 2012.
The law requires patients to have essentially a doctor’s note explaining the reason for their need for medical marijuana and to have been diagnosed with a “debilitating” medical condition such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV-positive status or AIDS, hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS or multiple sclerosis.
Clearly those applying to open a medical marijuana dispensary are business people hoping to run legal, legitimate businesses, facing a significant upfront investment and willing to operate under tight state control.
Communities should treat them as such.
