[420 Girl]

You can add the name of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the list of Los Angeles area officials seeking to crack down on L.A.'s medical marijuana network. On Tuesday, Villaraigosa said that he wants to drastically reduce the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, from the current estimated number of at least 800 down to 200 or less.

Having Mayor Villaraigosa jump on the crackdown bandwagon could make it more likely that the Los Angeles City Council takes a harder line against medical marijuana distribution in Los Angeles. Last Tuesday, the Council drafted language to be included in a comprehensive ordinance to regulate medical marijuana. The ordinance would not specifically permit the "sale" of medical marijuana, and thus could affect the practices of many Los Angeles medical pot dispensaries, which distribute medical marijuana to "qualified patients" in cash transactions that some officials consider clearly to be "sales."

However, if Los Angeles shuts down existing dispensaries under a new, stricter enforcement regime as Mayor Villaraigosa wishes, such dispensaries cannot all be expected to go quietly. Indeed, in September, the Los Angeles Collective Association and the Westside Green Oasis Dispensary sued the City after Green Oasis was denied a permit under the current moratorium banning new pot dispensaries in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Superior Court agreed with Green Oasis that L.A.'s medical marijuana moratorium violated the California Compassionate Use Act, and slapped an injunction on the City against enforcing its moratorium on Green Oasis. More such lawsuits could prove very costly to cash-strapped Los Angeles.

All of which begs the question: if having so many medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles is such a bad idea, why did the Mayor and the City Council let them proliferate in the first place?

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