Per LadyKnight's request, here's the letter I sent last week to Garcetti and the other 14 CM's.
Dear Honorable Councilmember Garcetti,
I am a resident of CD-8, an U.S. citizen and a registered voter and wish to bring a serious misuse of taxpayer dollars to your attention.
According to a recent Los Angeles Times article from Oct. 8, 2009, there are over 3,100 rape test kits that have to be tested by the LAPD DNA crime lab and there are reports that civilian employees and critical staff may need to be furloughed due to budgetary cut-backs. These rape kits represent 3,100+ victims of violent crimes that remain in fear while their rapists remain at large.
With such few financial resources the city and the LAPD have to work with, I'm flabbergasted that the city and LAPD would choose to allocate precious dollars towards raiding medical marijuana dispensaries when this money should have been used instead to tests many of those rape kits. I understand each LAPD raids costs taxpayers approximately $10,000 which begs the question, just how many rape kits could have been tested using this money? It's reprehensible that the city leadership believes that medical marijuana dispensaries pose a greater threat to the community than rapists at large. For that is the message sent; that the city thinks spending money on raids is money well spent rather than using this money to pay for rape kits.
Think about it, in the halls of power someone decided that the victims of rape, who surely go to bed each night in fear because their rapists remain at large, come second in priority. With all due respect, sir, someone with a reputation for defending victims of rape and domestic violence, like yourself, should have stepped up to defend these victims of rape and demanded that before a single red cent is wasted on medical marijuana raids, a non-issue to President Barack Obama and the rest of California, those funds should have been routed to pay for as many rape kits as a raid would cost. We're talking about the women and children in our community, Councilmember, the mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters who look to your leadership to provide them with protection. Do you honestly subscribe to the belief that medical marijuana is such a grave danger that it deserves priority over testing rape kits, fingerprints in robberies, etc? How can you do so and look at the women in your community in the eye?
Therefore, I urge you to advise the LAPD and the City Attorney and the entire city leadership to not spend a single cent more on raiding medical marijuana dispensaries and route those intended dollars towards paying for the aforementioned rape kits or other forensic tests languishing due to funds to pay for their testing.
To this end, I also urge you to reject the latest proposed ordinance, the fourth presented to you for consideration, and enact a more sensible ordinance that allows safe access to patients to their medicinal marijuana and which allows for cash to be tendered in compensation for the donation requested. As you are aware, this is clearly in keeping with the opinion of the Attorney General of California that store front dispensaries that use cash as a means of remuneration is 100% legal so you must make sure this is a requirement of any proposed ordinance. Since some patients rely on edible cannabis for relief and cannot smoke their medicine for whatever reason or simply do not have access to a vaporizer, I urge that you propose that any ordinance allow for edible forms of cannabis.
If you pass a ordinance that is fair and compassionate, the LAPD no longer need to raid dispensaries and limited resources would be better allocated to investigating and solving real crimes. Please consider the women who are counting on you to put them first.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I respectfully am requesting a response from you in writing or by telephone.
Sincerely,
GB
