Study: LA pot clinics shut down, crime went up

LOS ANGELES - A new study released Tuesday showed that when hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries were closed last year in Los Angeles crime rates rose in surrounding neighborhoods, challenging claims made by law enforcement agencies that the storefronts are magnets for crime.

The report by the nonprofit RAND Corp. reviewed crime reports for the 10 days prior to and the 10 days after city officials shuttered the clinics last summer after a new ordinance went into effect. The analysis revealed that crime increased about 60 percent within three blocks of a closed dispensary compared to the same parameters for those that remained open.

"If medical marijuana dispensaries are causing crime, then there should be a drop in crime when they close," said Mireille Jacobson, a RAND senior economist and the study's lead author. "Individual dispensaries may attract crime or create a neighborhood nuisance, but we found no evidence that medical marijuana dispensaries in general cause crime to rise."

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Crime was among the concerns that prompted the City Council to pass the ordinance that put strict guidelines on the pot clinics and forced many of them to close. Law enforcement authorities have long argued collectives attract crime because they often handle large amounts of cash and thieves can resell marijuana.

Two workers at different dispensaries were killed during robberies in June 2010.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca went one step further last September when he said nearly all dispensaries operate as criminal enterprises, a claim that infuriated medical marijuana supporters who have said law enforcement officials have resorted to scare tactics to advance their agenda.

"They have perpetuated this myth that there is more crime associated with collectives," said James Shaw of the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, an advocacy group for medicinal marijuana users. "This council should be emboldened to revise the ordinance so it's not so draconian to the patients and their associations."

Researchers looked at crime reports for 600 dispensaries in Los Angeles County — 170 that remained open and 430 ordered to close. They found that the further away from the clinics the less crime there was: within six blocks of a closed dispensary crime rose by 25 percent and by 10 blocks there was no perceptible change in crime.

The study said some of the factor for the increase may be because the storefronts had security cameras and guards, there was less foot traffic and fewer police patrols.

The city attorney's office called the study "deeply flawed."

"It relies exclusively upon faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurement and incomplete results. The conclusions are therefore highly suspect and unreliable," the city attorney's office said in a statement.

Councilman Ed Reyes called the report an "eye-opener" but said it was limited in its findings because it was conducted over a short period of time.

"I think the study needs to continue because it's a snapshot," Reyes said. "It verifies how complex this issue is."

Legal challenges still remain over whether city officials have the right to close dispensaries since state law allows medical marijuana collectives. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.

A judge in December ruled certain portions of the city ordinance were unconstitutional. Council members amended the ordinance but a lottery that would allow 100 collectives to remain open has yet to be conducted.

[tensity1]

A bit off-topic (yet related), but trying to get the word out.

There's a petition at We the People (White House site) to shed light on government obfuscation of unsound drug policy:

http://wh.gov/gKN

Thanks for checking it out.

[Dgunner]

Marijuana is not called marijuana on the reservation. We call it tribal currency . It has been used as tribal currency since 1959 and is of excellent quality. If you are a tribal member and get caught trading tribal currency to children? The male relatives take you for a walk into the pine woods.They walk out and the trader traitor usually crawls.

[nativecc]

There are so many ways you can twist those numbers. How about this angle? The reason there were criminals in that area was due to their pot use and the easy access to it. They were attracting criminals by feeding them dope. Not saying this is the case but you have to be careful how you interpret the data. What was the crime rate before the clinics were there?

"It relies exclusively upon faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurement and incomplete results. The conclusions are therefore highly suspect and unreliable," is so true.

[dssaunde]

Imagine what the MJ related crime rates would be if possessing a non-toxic non-addictive substance were no longer a crime! I know bootlegging and illegal alcohol arrests sure have skyrocketed since the 1920s! I said it earlier in these comments and I will say it again...It is almost as if making things that shouldn't be a crime illegal still creates real criminals. *GASP*

[kansas1946]

Study: LA pot clinics shut down, crime went up
*************
Duh. The American public's ignorance about marijuana is astounding, especially since they tolerate draconian laws that ruin many of their own children's lives.
********************
"There are two things that are constant, the universe and people's stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe"
-Albert Einstein-

[guest173]

state law should follow federal law. california is encouraging law breaking which encourages other states to follow in their own ways as well like arizona's anti mexican law. Pot is for losers, too much of it is being introduced to kids in middle school and high schools and that's why they advocate for it, they are already hooked. the cartels are making all this available to kids as early as possible and getting the kids to sell to each other. I saw this in high schools too much, I homeschool my kids now until college. california is not all that, they should stop supporting criminals and drug cartels.

[legalizemj]

So you're saying that after FORTY YEARS OF FEDERAL PROHIBITION middle-school kids can easily access cartel marijuana? I think that would be irrefutable proof that the prohibition is a complete failure!

Parents have only two choices - we can either choose to have drug dealers selling marijuana to kids or we can choose to have supermarkets selling legally-grown marijuana to adults at prices low enough to prevent illegal competition.

Given the complete failure of the prohibition, what do *you* think we should do?

[illcountryboy]

Alcohol is more addictive then marijuana. Good luck with your kids

[rwsmith29456]

What's the deal about 'medical marijuana'? Just plain legalize it and be done with it. Work on hard, destructive drugs like meth, crack, etc.

[legalizemj]

With reasoned thinking like that you'll NEVER make drug czar! lol

[bobnjersey]

[With reasoned thinking like that you'll NEVER make drug czar! lol]
-------------------------------------------
each drug should have it's own czar ... then they can wage a war 'of' drugs.

[dssaunde]

It is almost as if making things that shouldn't be a crime illegal still creates real criminals. *GASP*

[legalizemj]

Well of course crime went up - what did they expect when they eliminated the legal supply of a product with massive and unrelenting demand?

Customers didn't stop buying, they just switched back to buying from *illegal* suppliers, and while it's easy to shut down legally-operating stores, forty years of federal marijuana prohibition has taught us that it's IMPOSSIBLE to shut down illegal suppliers!

Parents have to decide if they want drug dealers selling marijuana to kids or supermarkets selling legally-grown marijuana to adults at prices low enough to prevent illegal competition. If you love your children tell your legislator.

[legalizemj]

I agree AD, but it depends on whether you consider the prohibition to have started with the passing of the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937 or the placing of marijuana in Schedule I of the CSA in 1970. Either way, there have been many decades to test the effectiveness of the prohibition and by all regards it has been an unmitigated failure. Since the prohibition started, there hasn't been a single day when marijuana wasn't being bought, sold and consumed in the U.S. Because we *can't* prevent people from buying and using marijuana, all our success at preventing legal stores from selling it does nothing but *decrease* the safety of our children.

[kesterling2003]

California was the first State to criminalize cannabis, and that was in 1913. That law also contained an exception for medicinal use of cannabis.

The reason that the California Legislature decided to criminalize cannabis was to get rid of the Mexicans. The last time I was in California just a couple of years ago I got the impression that the State has Mexicans coming out of its collective ears.

Remember when the Know Nothings jumped up and down and gibbered like idiots saying that if merrywanna wasn't criminalized that Negroes would want to miscegenate with white women? The Know Nothing prohibitionists can't even get racism to work the way that they think it should.

I say we're less than 2 years away from a full century of the abject failure of public policy that is embodied by the absolute prohibition of cannabis. How many more decades of guaranteed failure

Also, I thought we were using 40 years because it's been 40 years the past May since Dick Nixon "declared the war on (some) drugs".

[Bojax39]

"Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca went one step further last September when he said nearly all dispensaries operate as criminal enterprises"

Ah, Sheriff. Why don't you just admit you're p*ssed off because as legal entities these dispensaries don't need to pay you kickbacks and protection money in order to stay in business? :-)

[legalizemj]

+rep!