L.A. Medical Pot Drama Gets Wilder

L.A. after years of wrangling finally passed a highly restrictive new ordinance governing state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries, as Jacob Sullum noted earlier. Now this afternoon, the L.A. Weekly is reporting on a fresh L.A. Superior Court decision that if it gets upheld makes all that work nugatory.

That's because the ordinance L.A.'s City Council voted on explicitly allows the (non-profit) sale of pot to qualified patient members of your collective. However, today's decision, in a case involving an Eagle Rock neighborhood dispensary called Hemp Factory V, says, according to the Weekly's reporting, that such cash sales are straight-up illegal–an opinion that L.A.'s city attorney and county D.A. both agree with.

The whole twisted saga of L.A. and medical pot will be told in a forthcoming Reason magazine feature. Over at my California news and politics blog "City of Angles" this morning I surveyed the current state of pot in L.A. (prior to the "sales are illegal" whammy linked above) with many links.