Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Problem:Closing medical cannabis dispensaries in Los Angeles is associated with an increase in neighborhood crime, according to a unexpected new study released by the RAND Corporation today. 
  
 Researchers there looked at 21 days of crime reports for 600 L.A. dispensaries around the time the city ordered the clubs closed June 7, 2010. The city blamed the clubs for nuisances and crime, but RAND study lead author Mireille Jacobson said that after looking at the data “it's pretty clear we don't find evidence for the crime magnet hypothesis.” 
  
 “Overall crime increased almost 60 percent in the blocks surrounding closed clinics in the ten days following their closing,” RAND states. “The effects are concentrated on crimes, such as breaking and entering, and assault, that may be particularly sensitive to the presence of security. 
  
 “Incidents of breaking and entering increase by about 50 percent within four blocks, and assaults increase by about 90 percents after the dispensaries are closed.” 
  
 A dispensary operator in Los Angeles said the study's theory that a secure business makes a neighborhood safer jibes with him. 
  
 David Downs 
  
 Keeping a close eye on 'Blue Dream' may have added security benefits for neighbors 
  
 He declined to be identified for fear of political retribution during the city's ongoing permitting process, which may go to a lottery for 120 permits this fall. 
  
  
  
 “I can see how crime would go up once there's not eyes on the street,” the operator said. “We have to patrol these areas so hard. We have cameras around our entire facility and I got security guards that are doing checks randomly every 20 minutes. There's nobody allowed in our neighborhood smoking on the street or selling drugs. We're very proactive here. If people are smoking, or gathering in large groups, we make them disperse.” 
  
  
  
 Despite vociferous rhetoric by NIMBYs, police chiefs, and city leaders, Jacobson said the RAND study is “the first systematic, independent analysis of” the claim that dispensaries are crime magnets. 
  
  
  
 When the city of L.A. ordered them closed June 7, 2010 — 170 stayed open while 430 shut their doors — public crime data site crimereports.org offered block by block information on incidents, and the L.A. city attorney's office provided club addresses. RAND could track what happened in dispensary neighborhoods day by day from ten days before until ten days after the orders to close. 
  
  
  
 “It's not perfect but it's a good petri dish,” she said. 
  
  
  
 The study's validity is limited by the length of time studied — just 21 days — and the “noise” in the data. That's because crime on any given block is actually pretty rare, Jacobson said, so tiny changes like one or two incidents can make the numbers look bigger than they are. “The estimated increase should be interpreted with some caution,” the paper states. 
  
  
  
 RAND is broadening the study to include several weeks of data, and trying to wrestle with the fact that some clubs closed, then re-opened in the complex, fast-moving legal environment that is the L.A. basin. 
  
  
  
 Patient lobby group Americans for Safe Access supports regulated dispensaries. Spokesperson Kris Hermes said the RAND study buttresses a 2009 analysis by L.A.'s own Chief of Police Charley Beck, who found crime around banks dwarfed alleged dispensary crime. According to ASA reports, 71 robberies occurred at more than 350 banks, compared to 47 robberies at the more than 500 unregulated medical marijuana shops. 
  
  
  
 “Chief Beck observed that, 'banks are more likely to get robbed than medical marijuana dispensaries,' and that the claim that dispensaries attract crime 'doesn't really bear out.'” 
  
  
  
 (Two studies by law enforcement in Colorado also concluded in 2010 dispensaries had no effect on crime, Jacobson notes.) 
  
  
  
 Hermes said the crime magnet theory is a still a myth widely perpetuated by law enforcement groups the California Narcotic Officers' Association and the California Police Chiefs Association, backed by federal drug warriors and funding. 
  
  
  
 The RAND study is “really an affirmation of what we've been saying all along,” he said. 
  
  
  
 The California Narcotics Officers' Association did not return request for comment. “There is no justification for using marijuana as medicine,” the CNOA states (.pdf). “The overriding objective behind [the medical marijuana] movement is to allow a minority (less than five percent) of our society to get 'stoned' with impunity.” 
  
  
  
 Get a copy of the study here. ||||| Warren Robak, a spokesman for the Santa Monica-based think tank, said, “As we’ve begun to take a look at the report, we decided it’s best to remove it from circulation until that review is complete.” The study came under intense assault by deputies to Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, who have argued in court that crime associated with dispensaries is a key reason the city needs to limit the number. The office called the report's conclusions "highly suspect and unreliable," saying that they were based on "faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurements and incomplete results." 
  
 The study came to the counterintuitive conclusion that crime went up near Los Angeles dispensaries last year after the city’s medical marijuana ordinance took effect. 
  
 Rand Corp. has removed a controversial study on crime and medical marijuana dispensaries from its website while it reviews the conclusions, a decision that came almost three weeks after the Los Angeles city attorney’s office criticized the report and demanded that it be retracted immediately. 
  
 In a Sept. 21 letter to Mireille Jacobson, a health economist who was the lead researcher, Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney, and Asha Greenberg, an assistant city attorney, demanded “the immediate retraction" of the Rand study. “Until you publicly retract your work, we expect the Rand publication to be referenced nationwide, at incalculable avoidable harm to public health and safety,” they wrote. 
  
 The researchers compared the 10 days before the city's ordinance took effect on June 7, 2010, with the 10 days after, when some of the more than 400 illegal dispensaries shut down. They found a 59% increase in crime within three-tenths of a mile of a closed dispensary compared to an open one. But they also acknowledged the results were subject to a large margin of error and said that increase could range from as low as 5.4% to as high as 114%. 
  
 Usher and Greenberg challenged the assumption that most dispensaries closed on that date and remained closed for at least 10 days, noting, “To our knowledge, no comprehensive effort was ever made by anyone, including Rand, to track and record the precise openings and closings.” 
  
 They continued, “We were also terribly troubled by your suggestion that a 10-day period of statistical review constitutes a relevant crime trend.” 
  
 Usher and Greenberg also said the researchers failed to use “available crime statistics, which cover considerably more offenses than you charted.” They noted that the researchers did not acquire data from the Los Angeles Police Department that can be charted by city block. 
  
 Robak said Jacobson was not available for comment and said he was not sure when Rand would complete its internal review. “People are working on this expeditiously,” he said. 
  
 He acknowledged that the city attorney was the most outspoken critic. “I’m unaware of anyone else who’s been so pointed in their criticism,” he said. 
  
 Rand has previously removed studies from its website for review. “It does not happen often, but there is precedent,” he said. 
  
 Robak informed The Times of the organization’s decision to remove the study from its website and noted, “That is a part of the Rand ethic, if I may boast a bit.” 
  
 RELATED: 
  
 Study on pot shops has a twist 
  
 Federal crackdown represents a policy shift 
  
 U.S. decrees that marijuana has no accepted medical use 
  
 -- John Hoeffel 
  
 Photo: An employee sorts merchandise at a Southern California medical marijuana dispensary. Credit: Los Angeles Times |||||
Solution:
Backers of medical marijuana got a surprise victory a few weeks ago in the form of a study from the Rand Corp. Researchers concluded that after Los Angeles authorities shut down hundreds of dispensaries last year, crime actually increased around the closed facilities. The victory proved short-lived: Rand has pulled the controversial study for review after the LA city attorney and other officials demanded its retraction, reports the Los Angeles Times. “As we’ve begun to take a look at the report, we decided it’s best to remove it from circulation until that review is complete," said a spokesman. The city attorney had criticized the study—which compared crime stats in particular areas 10 days before the dispensaries shut down and 10 days after—as "highly suspect and unreliable."