California court allows cities to ban cannabis dispensaries

Silicon Valley Mercury News/Howard Mintz, 5/6/13.  "Medical pot:  California Supreme Court allows cities to ban weed dispensaries."

Its official, cities may opt out "SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court on Monday upheld the right of local governments to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, leaving intact a growing movement by political officials to outlaw the pot businesses despite a 1996 state law that permits the use of weed for medical purposes. So try the internet, I did "Nothing in the (1996 law) expressly or impliedly limits the inherent authority of a local jurisdiction, by its own ordinances, to regulate the use of its land, including the authority to provide that facilities for the distribution of medical marijuana will not be permitted to operate within its borders," Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for the court. At least 180 cities across the state and Bay Area have enacted bans in recent years, from Hollister to Petaluma to Moraga. But the region's largest cities, San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, have permitted the dispensaries, taxing the revenues while communities in-between increasingly become dispensary-free zones."   Read article.  Related - CBS News, 11/24/12,  left photograph from that article.  Right photograph from Mother Jones.  Kathy Meeh