Berkeley has gone full California with its latest decision requiring medical marijuana dispensaries to give away at least 2% of their product to low income patients making less than $32,000 a year.
The ordinance passed last month, and barring any hurdles will go into effect in August 2015. Reactions have been
predictably mixed:
Bishop Ron Allen, a former addict and head of the International Faith Based Coalition, told Fox News he doesn't understand why the California city would want to dump pot on the impoverished.
“It's ludicrous, over-the-top madness,” Allen said. “Why would Berkeley City Council want to keep their poverty-stricken under-served high, in poverty and lethargic?”
John Lovell, a lobbyist for the California Narcotic Officers' Association, agrees.
“Instead of taking steps to help the most economically vulnerable residents get out of that state, the city has said, ‘Let's just get everybody high,'” Lovell told The New York Times.
But others, like Mason Tvert, director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project, say it's a community program.
Tvert told Fox News that the decision to provide the drug to some of its low-income residents is up to the community.
“So it's a matter of the democratic process, people following the state's laws, and this law appears to accommodate both of those,” he said.
California dispensaries are prohibited by law from turning a profit, and some proprietors have already embraced the new program in one way or another. California legalized medical marijuana 20 years ago, and some dispensaries made the choice years ago to willingly donate portions of their product.
