A ban on the sale of marijuana passed in San Jose, California on Tuesday. The actions come as election-day voting on Proposition 64 approaches.
The city’s urgency ordinance “would prohibit commercial use of non-medical marijuana in the city, including commercial cultivating processing, manufacturing, distributing, testing and selling of recreational weed,” according to the Mercury News.
San Jose is only the latest in a run of California cities quickly passing restrictive marijuana laws. Bans are also in place in Berkeley, Palo Alto, Campbell, Foster City, Hayward, Davis, Martinez and more.
Officials argue that passing this law allows them more time to reach out to the community and assess the effects of a recreational marijuana market. Most of these bans are considered temporary.
Proposition 64 legalizes recreational marijuana throughout the state of California, yet requires recreational shops to obtain a local license before being issued a state one – keeping the cities in control over the commercial industry.
As a representative for five major San Jose pot collectives, Sean Kali-rai knows the rat race of the booming marijuana industry. “Cities fear what happened with Prop. 215, which legalized medical pot without a clear framework and led to a proliferation of illegal dispensaries. What the urgency ordinances do is create a clear line of what’s allowed and what’s not — so no one can open a pot shop and start selling recreational marijuana illegally,” he said to ABCNews.
Making some, James Anthony, an Oakland-based attorney who specialized in pot regulation, think that the cities are overreacting. “This is a complete and utter waste of time,” Anthony said, “They don’t have the power to change the fact that marijuana will be legal on Nov. 9. They’re making it look like Prop. 64 is a scary thing that allows pot shops on every corner — and it’s the complete opposite.”
Prop 64 allows the legalization of recreational marijuana throughout the states for individuals 21 years or older including clauses on home cultivation, transportation and more. The measure has been backed by long lists of notables from major newspapers including the LA Times to a variety of public leaders and law enforcement, and the California Nurses Association.
