Marijuana Q & A

The Daily Bulletin's Will Bigham interviewed Darrell Kruse, the owner of the now-closed Claremont medical marijuana dispensary C.A.N.N.A.B.I.S. The city of Claremont won its lawsuit against Kruse last month and the judge in the case granted a permanent injunction barring Kruse from reopening his dispensary.

Since then, on May 13th, the Claremont City Council voted 3-1 to reject a municipal ordinance that would have allowed a single dispensary in town. Instead, the council directed city staff to craft an ordinance banning all dispensaries.

Although we didn't support the dispensary ordinance, we also think that the city didn't really act in good faith in the entire, drawn-out ordinance process. Apparently, Darrell Kruse feels the same way, as he told Will Bigham in the Bulletin interview:

Q: What do you think about the city's recent decision to ban dispensaries? As you know, the City Council had previously voted, in concept, to allow one dispensary.

A: The city has been disingenuous throughout the process. If I ever believed they would allow a dispensary, I would have settled. If they had intended to have one, they could have done it a lot sooner. They delayed until the court decided the issue and then allowed their discompassionate attitude to prevail and ignored the needs of sick people and the will of the voters.

Kruse also indicated that he might fight the court's decision and felt that the state appellate court might be more open to his arguments.

In researching some of the information for this post, we came across an interesting campaign donation in January, 2007, from Kruse to an unexpected recipient. We're still trying to figure out Kruse's reasoning for the $500 contribution. It doesn't seem to make much sense, but, as they say, politics makes strange bedfellows:

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