The L.A. City Council is voting on whether to repeal the ban on pot shops that they passed this July.; We look into the argument that when you tax the walthiest more, they move to states where the rates are lower.; We talk to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who was barred from participating in the presidential debates.; The MacArthur Foundation announced this years $500,000 Genius Grant winners, including four Californians.; We find out what Arnold Schwarzenegger's new autobiography called "Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story," is all about.; Time Warner owns the rights to air Lakers games, but what if you don't have Time Warner Cable?; Music critic Drew Tewksbury talks about the history of Dubstep.; Detroit auto companies and Silicon Valley tech companies are figuring out how to let you Facebook while driving.; A slew of SoCal restaurants have been experimenting with carbonated cocktails and homemade soda pops.
POLL: LA City Council votes to repeal ban on medical marijuana dispensaries
Update: The Los Angeles City Council repealed a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in an 11-2 vote Tuesday.
The council majority voted to rescind a July decision to put a "gentle ban" on medical marijuana, one that would shutter all storefront medical marijuana dispensaries but allow patients and licensed caregivers to grow their own cannabis.
Original story below
Today, the L.A. City Council will vote on whether to repeal the ban on pot shops that they passed this July. The shops were supposed to close August 5, but challengers gathered the 50,000 signatures needed to put it on hold temporarily. Council members are currently holding a special meeting on the ban this morning.
RELATED: Read what advocates and naysayers think about the ban
"I don't think [L.A. City Council] expected the medical marijuana community, the pot shop owner community to hit back so hard and so fast against this ban," KPCC's Frank Stoltze said.
The council has only two options: to repeal the ban and draft new dispensary regulations, or let voters decide. According to Stoltze, putting the proposal on a special election ballot comes with a $3-4 million price tag, while adding it to the March ballot would incur nominal fees.
The crackdown resulted from L.A.-area pot shop numbers ballooning to around 1,000 in recent years, though a recent UCLA study showed that the count was overblown.
Stoltze said the city got off to a bad start when first trying to establish control in 2007, creating exemptions that many dispensary owners took advantage of. Other owners opened storefronts illegally.
Primary caregivers were also allowed to grow their own marijuana for medicinal purposes, but the definition quickly blurred.
"The original idea was a bunch of patients could get together collectively and grow marijuana," Stoltze added. "The argument from pot shop owners is, a lot of patients cannot grow pot so ... their contribution to the collective is to give money [to pot shops]. Authorities say that's essentially just paying for pot."
Regulation also proved difficult due to conflicting court rulings, "on whether or not cities can regulate pot shops. The federal government bans the use of pot for any reason, but we have state law that allows certain uses," Stoltze continued.
Regardless of the vote, the federal government has promised to continue its dispensary-closing spree. Last week, federal authorities targeted 71 local pot shops in an effort to shut them down.
Guest:
Frank Stoltze:, KPCC's crime and politics reporter; follow him at
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Does taxing the rich really drive them out of the state?
One of the arguments against propositions that raise taxes for the wealthy — like Props 30 and 38 this time around — is that when taxes go up on the wealthiest, they move to states where the rates are lower.
And we need millionaires. Their taxes pay for one fourth of California's general budget, but there's data that shows they might not flee after all.
San Jose Mercury News reporter Mike Rosenberg has been looking into it.
Could Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson draw swing-state votes?
Tomorrow night, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will meet face to face in their first debate, but Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, will be watching on TV like the rest of us.
He's tried to get into the debates, but with no success. This, in spite of the fact that the former two-term governor of New Mexico is on the ballot in 47 states, including California.
And even if he's polling in the single digits, some political analysts wonder whether he could draw enough votes in swing states to act as a spoiler.
Governor Johnson joins the show from Salt Lake City.
California home to four MacArthur Genius Grant winners
The MacArthur foundation has announced the 23 winners who will take home the Genius Grant with $500,000 in award money. The grants, paid over five years, give recipients freedom to pursue a creative vision and winners don't have to report how they spend the money.
Winners come from a wide range of categories from classical musicians to microbiologists, and out of the 23 winners, four of them call California home. One is just in our own backyard.
Uta Barth
Los Angeles, CA
Age: 54
Conceptual Photographer exploring the nature of vision and the difference between how we see reality and how a camera records it in evocative, abstract compositions that focus attention on the act of looking and the process of perception.
Elissa Hallem
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA
Age: 34
Neurobiologist exploring the physiology and behavioral consequences of odor detection and chemoreception in invertebrates and identifying interventions that may eventually reduce the scourge of parasitic infections in humans.
Sarkis Mazmanian
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
Age: 39
Medical Microbiologist illuminating the complex interplay between microbes and the host immune system and the role certain bacteria may play in the development, or mitigation, of a broad range of human diseases.
Maurice Lim Miller
Family Independence Initiative
Oakland, CA
Age: 66
Social Services Innovator designing programs of mutual support and self-sufficiency that break the cycle of economic dependency for low-income families and build more resilient communities from the ground up.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story'
Alex Cohen talks with one book reviewer who's read all 646 pages of Arnold's autobiography.
Guest:
Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Senior Culture Editor
Time Warner Cable's monopoly on Lakers games
The Lakers preseason starts this weekend, they'll play the Golden State Warriors in Fresno on Sunday night, but you can only watch the game if you have Time Warner Cable.
That's because the company owns the team's television rights. So what do you do if you're one of the millions of people in Los Angeles who don't have a Time Warner subscription?
Here to help us with that is Tom Hoffarth, reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News.
Car and tech companies hope to make it easier to Facebook while driving
We've all been there — stuck in traffic, bored and frustrated.
Sure, you could yell at the car in front of you, but wouldn't it be a great to vent your rage on on Facebook? Or maybe send off a witty traffic haiku via Twitter?
Car companies are trying to make that possible without having to fiddle with a smart phone while driving. On-board computers are quickly becoming the next big thing in car accessories.
The California Report's Andrea Kissack has more.
What is dubstep?
Some cultural trends you can ignore, but some have staying power... like dubstep. For now the genre doesn't seem to be going away. It can be heard in movie trailers, TV shows and commercials:
Music critic Drew Tewksbury is in the studio with Alex Cohen to tell dubstep's origin story and to describe what's next for that signature *womp* *womp* sound.
Drew's dubstep playlist:
One border agent dead, one injured while patrolling US-Mexico border
A U.S. Border patrol agent was shot to death early this morning while patrolling on horseback in Naco, Arizona. A second agent also suffered gunshot wounds and was air-lifted to a hospital for surgery. The two agents were investigating a tripped sensor along the US Mexican border.
Officials haven't said what led to the gunfire, but this is a stretch of border known for both human and drug trafficking. In 2010 another agent was killed nearby, Brian Terry. His death was later linked to the Fast and Furious gun smuggling operation.
Andrew Selee Director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. joins the show to discuss the incident.
Should pedophiles be treated like alcoholics?
When incidents involving pedophiles hit the news, we often focus on what happened and who the perpetrator was, but the question that seldom gets attention in the media is 'why?'
The conventional wisdom is that child molesters were themselves molested as kids, or suffered some sort of trauma, but research shows that may not be the case.
Would society do much better to treat pedophiles less like monsters and more like people with a problem, like we often do with alcoholics?
Jennifer Bleyer, who wrote a recent piece for Slate on this topic, joins the show.
LA restaurants cooling down patrons with fancy carbonated drinks
It's been one hot, hot September. This month in many parts of LA County, average temperatures have been soaring well above 90 degrees. Here in Pasadena today the high temperature is expected to hit 103 degrees.
To help guests stay cool, L.A. restaurants and bars around town have been serving up a slew of new carbonated drinks from unique sodas to fancy cocktails.
At Baco Mercat in downtown Los Angeles you can try Baco Pop, flavored with Orange, Ginger and Juniper.
For something a little less traditional check out Plow & Gun's coffee pops at the Altadena Farmers' Market.
Alma, a new restaurant in downtown Los Angeles on South Broadway Avenue, also has a fun drink to try: Earl grey and apple soda. It tastes a little like a hard apple cider, without the alcohol. Ari Taymor is the head chef of Alma, which opened in June.
Lastly, Red Medicine's sparkling sangria is an interesting new "do-it yourself" cocktail.
Want to make your own soda? Check out Heirloom LA Sous Chef Tad Weyland's recipe for Ginger and Lemon soda.
Guest:
Willy Blackmore is the LA editor of the food website TastingTable.com