LAKE COUNTY — A three-pronged item that will take a stab at the problems facing the county”s medical marijuana identification card (MMIC) program is on the county Board of Supervisors” Tuesday agenda.
A potential 185 percent fee hike for the cost of a card highlighted problems with the state”s administration of the program when the issue was discussed during the board”s Feb. 13 meeting.
Beginning March 1, DHS will raise its per-card charge to participating counties to cover the cost of the state-maintained data base designed to identify legal marijuana users. Prop. 215, the Compassionate Use Act, protects medical cannabis patients from state-level criminal penalties for possession, use and cultivation of medical marijuana.
The increase would translate to a $100 fee for Lake County”s MediCal beneficiaries and a $200 fee for its non-MediCal beneficiaries, up drastically from the current $70 charge.
The increase was passed down from the California Department of Health Services (DHS) to participating counties as part of mandatory compliance with a health and safety code section of Senate Bill 420, which was signed into law in January 2004.
Lake County became the 26th out of California”s 58 counties to come into compliance with SB 420 when the Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance that set up the MMIC program and set the current $70 fee in November last year.
The board will consider rescinding that ordinance at its upcoming Tuesday meeting. Supervisors expressed concern last time the issue was discussed over how high the fees could theoretically go.
Brown said 9,000 cards were issued statewide, falling short of an anticipated 150,000 cards. Brown also cited a $1 million loan DHS acquired to put in the database for the I.D. cards.
Dist. 1 Supervisor Ed Robey said the fee hike was “counterproductive and not what the legislature intended in the first place,” adding that for the state to hand down the administrative cost of the MMIC program to potential cardholders was unfair.
“We need more direction from the board,” said county Health Services Director Jim Brown of the agenda items up for consideration in the upcoming BOS meeting. “Because it was not an agenda item last time, we couldn”t go there.”
The item on the Feb. 13 agenda only allowed for the board to act on the proposed fee increase to cover the cost DHS will begin to charge March 1. By lack of action, the board chose not to approve the fee hike. It could not, however, pull out of the MMIC program at that meeting because that was not what was advertised on the agenda, as County Council Anita Grant pointed out.
This time, three options will be on the table. The first is rescinding the current ordinance with the fee set at $70 for a medical marijuana identification card. The second is Brown”s request that the board give direction about implementing a local I.D. card that would only be valid in Lake County to help local law enforcement identify legal cannabis patients in the interim. The third is considering a new ordinance that would increase the fees to meet state requirements.
Action can be taken on any or all of those three.
The MMIC program issues will be addressed in the BOS” upcoming Tuesday, Feb. 27 meeting in the downtown Lakeport courthouse on Forbes Street. It is the fourth “non-timed item” on the agenda; the last timed item will be taken up at 9:45 a.m.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
