Orange County Medical Marijuana Laws in Flux

As they are all over California, Orange County medical marijuana laws are in serious dispute. With the legalization of pot for certain medicinal purposes, one might have assumed that dispensaries would become the norm and anyone with a valid prescription would not have to look far to get it filled. However, in practice this has been far from the case. Right now, cities across the state are in a state of legal flux. Some rulings coming down very soon will shed a clearer light on the picture.

Orange County medical marijuana laws are being put to the test by new rulings set to come down from the California state court. They are being charged with ruling whether or not individual cities have the right to ban dispensaries even in the wake of statewide legality. The major setting of the ruling is coming from Anaheim, which has an ordinance in place banning these dispensaries, an ordinance that has come under challenge from citizens and lawyers who claim the ban is in violation of state law.

There’s little doubt that the ruling will affect no only Anaheim but many cities across the state. Other cities are waiting anxiously to see the results before enacting bans of their own or finding out that they won’t be able to. Naturally, interested citizens are also watching closely on both sides of the argument. Those who believe in the legality of the new pot laws are hoping that the state court overturns the bans and makes it illegal for cities to make up their own laws concerning these dispensaries. Those who feel the new pot laws have a damaging effect on municipalities are hoping the bans are upheld and that other cities will adopt similar bans.

Anaheim and Orange County medical marijuana laws have been the subject of controversy for almost as long as the compassion act of 1996 went through. The problem, proponents of the act say, is that if all cities enact bans on legal dispensaries, then the laws are as worthless as the paper they are written on. Legitimate patients will have to go underground to get to their source, making what’s legal turn into something that lies far more in the gray area of the law. People on the other side of the issue claim that these dispensaries lead to an increase in crime and they believe individual cities should have the right to enact their own laws, even if they are contrary to state legislation.