Medical-marijuana advocates and critics in California have at least one thing in common: they agree that the system for distributing the drug to medical users is flawed and rife with abuse, the New York Times reported June 9.

Twelve years after California became the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana via the voter-approved Proposition 215, even residents of tolerant Mendocino County are calling for changes to prevent large-scale marijuana growers from using the law as a shield while still enabling access for legitimate medical users.

A ballot initiative in Mendocino County would place new limits on marijuana, while other communities in California have moved to restrict or ban marijuana clubs for medical users from operating. About 60 communities in the state have banned the clubs, while 80 others have placed limits on them.

"There were a handful initially and then all the sudden, they started to sprout up all over," said Dennis Zine, a member of the Los Angeles City Council. "We had marijuana facilities next to high schools and there were high-school kids going over there and there was a lot of abuse taking place."

"I think there's no doubt there's been abuse, but there's probably no system created by human beings that hasn't been abused," said Bruce Mirken, the director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. "But the answer to that is not the wholesale throwing out the baby with the bath water."

With overlapping laws and jurisdiction, the state is planning to issue guidelines on medical marijuana this summer. "These dispensaries aren't supposed to be big profit centers," said California Attorney General Jerry Brown. "This is supposed to be for individual use."