I was at the Los Angeles City Hall to speak on the medicalmarijuana dispensary ban proposal. I see a large cultural shift happening;
there is a segment of the population prepared for it and desiring it. Then
there’s another segment fighting fiercely and hoping it will just go away. I
will tell you that it will not simply go away.
Dispensaries are businesses; we seem to forget that
frequently. What this means is, someone or a few people talked to landlords,
filled out paperwork, obtained competitive merchandise, advertized, bought
containers, bags, showcases, refrigerators and the countless other resources
you need to run a good business. The government then finds that these business
cannot be for profit but this is an impossible demand. No physical structure,
no product, no rent can paid in any other way than with money. If you continually
lose money or break even, your business will eventually go under as you
suddenly find yourself unable to pay your apartment rent or the mortgage on
your home.
At least two council members mentioned that if marijuana is
what we say it is then we should allow it to be sold in drug stores. This merely
comes out of a strong desire to control; to get a handle on the trade and give
it to big business. I don’t want to buy marijuana from CVS, I want to buy it
from the guy I can chat with about life at my favorite dispensary. Don’t crush
the dispensaries; don’t put all those owners, all those employees out of work
when we should be praising their business prowess. The dispensaries owners are
the entrepreneurs that saw the demand and did the necessary work to capitalize
on it; let’s not punish them for that.
Allow yourself time to shift your views.
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