Cannabis conjecture

Medical Cannabis is a combination of words that inspire hate, spittle, and venom in people. 
It pushes people who need it for viable health reasons into a corner of the ring opposite those who absolutely refuse to believe it’s viable for medical purposes. The people in that opposing corner seem to include Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino, who heads a city that’s banned medical marijuana dispensaries in both brick-and-mortar form as well as mobile.

Sorry Santa Maria, not in this town. And not in Nipomo, either, she added recently with a letter to the SLO County Planning and Building Department in support of an appeal against the SLO Planning Commission’s recent approval of a minor use permit for a medical marijuana dispensary to lay down roots with walls in Nipomo.

She’s basically saying people shouldn’t be able to access medical marijuana. Never mind those of you who find it’s the only thing that helps reduce the number of seizures you get during the day. Or those of you receiving chemotherapy who use it to reduce nausea and stimulate appetite. Or those of you who use it for chronic pain relief.

“The proposed site in Nipomo is a space where SLO County has not had to maintain a significant law enforcement … Allowing a target for violent crime to be built so far from SLO County’s patrols, but so close to Santa Maria would be irresponsible as it would likely place a burden upon Santa Maria Police and the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department,” she wrote.
Let’s talk about a dispensary as a target for violent crime. A 2013 UCLA study on the topic found that’s not necessarily the case.

Here’s a snippet directly off the website: “Professor Bridget Freisthler and colleagues … published a study finding that dispensaries in Sacramento that utilized specific security features (having security cameras, requiring marijuana recommendation identification card) had lower violent crime within 100 to 250 feet of the dispensary.”
Ethnobotanica—the permit applicant—submitted a plan with similar “specific security features” intact, plus a guard on premises for 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you’re going to bring up a point as an elected official, you should at least back it up with real information. Don’t just make a statement and leave it at that. I hate those kinds of statements. They sort of hang in the air like fact, like truth, when it fact it’s merely conjecture.
Where’s your study, Patino? Does a dispensary actually attract more violent crime to a particular area? Does it actually change neighborhoods for the worse? The UCLA study says no.

What about police presence? Ethnobotanica representative Stephanie Kiel said the company’s offering to put restless minds at ease by levying an additional 5 percent “tax” on what it sells, earmarking that money specifically for the SLO County Sheriff’s Office to put extra staff on patrol in the area.
She’s mentioned it at three different meetings. That equals at least an extra $250,000 for the Sheriff’s Office’s budget, according to preliminary revenue predictions for the brick-and-mortar dispensary.

I’m not the only Santa Maria resident who’s miffed by the Mayor’s stance on the issue. A very candid Gale McNeeley was so upset he penned a letter to the editor saying:
“Why should Mayor Patino step across county lines to pressure the supervisors in San Luis Obispo to overturn their commission’s work? The answer is she shouldn’t. By doing so, she can only do harm to the people who need medical marijuana in San Luis Obispo and Northern Santa Barbara counties.”
If we received a letter from one person, there are more residents out there who feel the same way.