Brian Pat Bilbray, an Imperial Beach City Councilman and Congressman Brian Bilbray's son, officially endorsed Proposition S, an Imperial Beach voter initiative to allow medical marijuana dispensaries.
Congressman Bilbray opposes medical marijuana, a position that put him at odds with his daughter Briana, who has terminal cancer.
"With my sister having to use medical marijuana to treat her stage three melanoma this issue is very emotional and personal for me and my family," said Brian Pat Bilbray in a statement. "If the federal government is not going to take it up upon themselves to start regulating, allow the FDA to actually look at it so it can be put in pharmacies, then it is up to the states to do exactly what they have done.”
If passed, Prop S would allow some medical marijuana patient collectives and cooperatives to open in Imperial Beach.
“Fact of the matter is, it does work, patients do need it I have seen it firsthand," Brian Pat Bilbray said. "Patients deserve the right to safe local access in Imperial Beach. It’s time to end the rhetoric and let reason, science, and evidence drive our public policies. I will be voting Yes on S and encourage all my constituents to do the same."
Imperial Beach Mayor Jim Janney and the majority of the Imperial Beach City Council are against the measure.
Janney said in October that the authors of Prop S went overboard.
"If it was as simple as saying I want to allow for three storefronts in Imperial Beach, they would have said that. But they didn’t do that," he said. "We could have up to 19 or 20 of them, or more, depending on how you locate them. I think that’s way too far. I don’t think that was good law. I don’t think that’s really the way it should work."
