City’s pot ban challenged

According to a report that first appeared in the Press-Enterprise, a Temecula attorney is suing Murrieta regarding the city’s ban on medical marijuana.

Ray Johnson, who is best known for filing lawsuits against developers, is challenging Murrieta’s ban on marijuana dispensaries in all parts of the city and its prohibition on operators who make deliveries, according to a published report.

Johnson filed the suit last week in Riverside County Superior Court on behalf of Compassionate Care Beneficiaries, a group of medical marijuana user and their primary care givers that is based in the Temecula Valley.

Johnson’s wife, Polly, is battling cancer and is a member of that group, according to the report.

Johnson maintains that medical marijuana has saved his wife’s life and allowed her to remain a fully functioning adult, according to the report.

The lawsuit contends that Murrieta’s ban violates the California Environmental Quality Act. It states that city residents who need medical marijuana will have to drive farther to get it, thus creating more air pollution and traffic.

It also maintains that, because so many cities have outlawed medical marijuana, Temecula Valley residents must drive to Los Angeles or Palm Springs to get the drug legally or try to obtain it illegally, according to the report that appeared in the Press-Enterprise.

California voters passed an initiative in 1996 that allowed for the use of medical marijuana for the treatment of cancer, AIDS and chronic pain.