ESCONDIDO -- Medical marijuana dispensaries will have to wait awhile to find out whether they can operate in Escondido.

The City Council voted 4-0 this week to adopt an urgency ordinance that places a 45-day moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries. The council can extend the moratorium for up to a year and pass another yearlong ordinance after that if it chooses.

City officials said they have received several applications for marijuana dispensaries recently, including a request in June by Stephen Wheeler for a nonprofit "discreet medical cannabis delivery service" for inland North County residents.

Wheeler said in a phone interview that his service would dispense marijuana to patients at their homes. He said he wants to make medical marijuana available to card-carrying patients who need it, especially patients who are too ill to drive to dispensaries outside town.

Several council members said they were sympathetic to patients who use medical marijuana, but added that it was a complex issue that needed studying.

The council said the urgency ordinance will buy them time to explore the issue, noting that the city does not have rules regulating the dispensaries today.

The council hasn't been faced with the prospect of marijuana dispensaries, Councilwoman Olga Diaz said Thursday, "so we haven't been able to put a structure in place to deal with them."

Some doctors prescribe marijuana to help patients suffering from pain, to increase the appetites of patients going through chemotherapy, and to relieve eye pressure for people with glaucoma, among other things.

California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996. While the drug is illegal under federal statutes, the Obama administration has signaled it won't prosecute dispensaries that operate under state law.

California's cities and counties have approached dispensaries differently. Thirty-two cities have regulations that allow them, while 111 -- including San Marcos and Oceanside -- have bans, according to Americans for Safe Access, a medical cannabis advocacy group.

City officials said they're hopeful that the Fourth District Court of Appeals will rule soon on a case pitting Qualified Patients Association against the city of Anaheim.

The court will decide whether a dispensary counts as a primary care provider and is therefore allowed to distribute marijuana under the state's Compassionate Use Act. Anaheim wants to ban dispensary businesses, saying they're not primary care providers and therefore should be subject to federal law, which forbids the sale of marijuana and does not make a legal exception for medical use.

Councilman Dick Daniels said in a phone interview that while he hopes the court ruling will provide guidance for any decision the council makes, he's predisposed to vote against dispensaries based on the enforcement problems he said they cause, such as muggings as patients exit the dispensaries and illegal sales of the drug.

"I'm not going to support (marijuana dispensaries) under any conditions," said Daniels said, adding that "any benefits would be outweighed by the problems it would cause."