On her blog today, Seattle City Council member Sally Clark argues that the city should deal with the proliferation of medical-marijuana dispensaries and grow-ops---some of them licensed and catering to actual medical-marijuana patients, many of them not---by establishing zones where they can legally set up shop.

Clark writes:

It makes sense to me that we treat legitimate medical marijuana “small grow co-ops” similar to a kind of special purpose medical clinic.  This designation already exists in the land use code, so that’s handy.  Medical clinics can’t set up in residential neighborhoods and I think that would be fair for medical marijuana grow/shops, as well.  It seems reasonable, also, to require that a proposed co-op grow/shop follow all the normal business rules – adhere to the building code, the nuisance codes, the noise code, etc. – plus have a security plan reviewed and approved by the city. It would be great if this weren’t necessary, but we’ve had break-ins and serious injuries as people not so interested in patient access to pot try to get their hands on this federally prohibited commodity.  A security plan would be important for the business and its neighbors.

Clark's idea is along the lines of a proposal by council candidate Maurice Classen (who's challenging Jean Godden) to license and regulate medical marijuana co-ops and restrict them to non-residential areas. Outright legalization, Clark notes, would "make all these questions moot, but while that effort moves forward we need answers now for the businesses popping up every day." Clark says the council is likely to propose some kind of regulatory framework "soon."