The city of L.A. on Friday tried to shore up it's pot-shop regulations. The new language would only allow 100 dispensaries to survive. That's a fraction of the more than 450 that operated at the peak of the city's marijuana dispensary business in spring, 2010.

The move will allay some who said the stores were more numerous than Starbucks and attracted crime, robberies, shootings and unsavory characters.

Some dispensary boosters say the regulations are too strict and will restrict California pot patients' ability to get their medicine.

While the city's new rules will also produce audits of pot shops (with the city's budget crisis, it'll be interesting to see if that actually comes to pass), it's not clear the fundamental business of retail weed-selling will change in L.A.

And what is that fundamental business? Some have said pot shops are supplied by Mexican drug cartel products and operate (against California law) as for-profit enterprises.

Our commenter of the day, Jimmy James, says that doesn't make sense, given the low quality of stereotypical Mexican weed and the high quality of the stuff sold at dispensaries:

“If you're so ignorant to believe that the high-quality hydroponic marijuana grown in and bought legally in California that was once only available in glossy, hi-quality High Times centerfolds has anything to do with the huge 50 pound Pot Busts that involve intra-border tunnels and dirty brown Mexican weed, you're even more ignorant than your snark shows.”

It's a notion that's hard to believe: Mexican cartels don't operate grows in the National Forests right here in California? They don't run area grow houses? Not an ounce of Mexican weed ends up in your local pot shop? Really?

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