The medical marijuana industry is under attack in California, and has been for a long time. There are many government officials that have taken advantage of the fact that California does not have a state regulatory system in place for medical marijuana dispensaries. Many local governments have cracked down on medical marijuana establishments, including the City of Vallejo. Long time activist and attorney James Anthony posted an article on his blog detailing how the City of Vallejo is about to waste two million dollars fighting medical marijuana dispensaries:
Next week Tuesday 3/24, the Vallejo City Council will waste over $2 million dollars on an issue that is not a major priority—and that should be making money for the City, not costing it.
Medical marijuana dispensaries are not a priority issue on anyone’s list in Vallejo. There are plenty of other important projects to fund: the $6 million dollars in unfunded pavement maintenance would be a good place to start. Investing in high speed broadband for Vallejo residents and businesses would be another. Neither one of these projects will move forward because the city budget is barely breaking even for the first time since bankruptcy.
Instead the City has budgeted at least $550K for lawsuits against dispensaries and will probably spend at least twice that. The City will also forego at least $600K in revenues by refusing to accept taxes from dispensaries. Earlier this month, they refused over $50K in monthly taxes.
You can click on the link to the original article to find out more about pending lawsuits, and more importantly, how to contact city officials in Vallejo. Make sure to contact those officials early and often to point out that these dispensaries are vital to patients, and cause no problems for the City of Vallejo. The City of Vallejo needs every dollar they can get, so they shouldn’t be spending money fighting medical marijuana dispensaries, and should embrace them, and collect the revenue that the dispensaries clearly want to provide to Vallejo.
