Today, a Superior Court Judge in California struck down Los Angeles’ current ban on new medical marijuana dispensaries, calling the moratorium invalid. The invalidation of LA’s’ attempt to stop new medical marijuana dispensaries from opening, also prevents law enforcement from carrying out the ban. However, the attempt to stop medical marijuana dispensaries from spreading across the city, has created an interesting map.
The LA Times compiled a map of the locations of current marijuana dispensaries, the locations of potential dispensaries that had applied for an exemption from the ban, and those dispensaries whose applications had already been denied or withdrawn.
The ruling today legally makes all of these locations potential marijuana dispensaries. What is most striking about the map is the sheer number of dispensaries. If you zoom in to the map, some areas shows amazing densities of 12 or more dispensaries within one square mile—in some places. That’s greater than any density of McDonald’s restaurants in all of LA.
These types of densities leads me to ask two questions:
- Who is smoking all that pot? (Seriously, that’s a lot of marijuana, I can’t believe that the demand would be so high as to make dispensaries more ubiquitous than Starbucks.)
- How will these types of densities affect law enforcement as they try and police illegal marijuana sales, cultivation, and use?
If you can answer these questions, please let me know by leaving a comment. I’m extremely interested in how law enforcement strategies against illegal marijuana will change (be frustrated by) the legalization of medical marijuana.
You can see the full map here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dispensaries-i,0,5658093.htmlstory
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
