The Board of Supervisors is considering what I can only describe as a vindictive, Draconian cultivation ordinance on June 26 at 1:30 p.m.
On May 1, the Board of Supervisors appointed a nine-person Marijuana Cultivation Ordinance Advisory Committee to draft a compromise cultivation ordinance.
The committee has met three times and is making progress.
Various interests are represented, and everyone has been working hard to come up with a compromise cultivation ordinance acceptable to patients, medical cannabis farmers and residents who are bothered by rogue growers that represent a tiny minority of medical marijuana farmers.
Then suddenly at the June 12 board meeting, just after the defeat of Measure D, it seemed to me that Supervisors Brown and Comstock declared war on the large medical marijuana growing community.
In my opinion they are trying to pass a repressive interim urgency ordinance regulating medical marijuana growing right in the middle of the growing season, after people have planted their gardens in reliance on existing state law.
In my opinion this is an attack on the cannabis growing community in response to the referendum that prompted the board to rescind its ordinance, and in response to the defeat of Measure D.
I think they need to let the committee do its work and not shut down all the cannabis farmers immediately.
The proposed ordinance violates Proposition 215 and SB 420, as well as the Supreme Court”s Kelly case, which allows a patient to grow what she needs for her own use, but a minimum of six mature plants or 12 immature plants as a safe harbor.
Also, section 11362.775 of the California Health and Safety Code provides that medical marijuana patients may “associate” in order to “collectively or cooperatively” cultivate medical marijuana. A collective grow might be, for instance, five people growing 30 female plants.
The ordinance bans “commercial” cultivation, which, in my professional opinion is erroneously defined as anything more than six mature plants on any one parcel, even on large acreage parcels.
It limits outdoor cultivation to three female plants on less than half of an acre, and a total of six female plants on parcels larger than half of an acre, whether grown outdoors or indoors.
It proposes to ban collective grows, which are authorized by Health and Safety Code Section 11362.775.
A proposed provision in this ordinance makes growing too many plants a criminal offense, with imprisonment for as much as six months for each violation of the ordinance, and each day someone is not in compliance is deemed to constitute a separate offense, so that someone out of compliance for merely 10 days could be sentenced to five years in jail.
Criminalization by the county of acts decriminalized by the state is clearly illegal.
Given the state prisoner dump and the overload of the county jails, what sort of real criminals is the county going to let out of jail so they can house ol” granny with cancer because she has a few too many plants growing in her backyard?
It”s time for healing and compromise and recognition of the fact that medical marijuana money drives the economy in Lake County, just as it does in Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity and other Northern California counties.
It is estimated that 25 to 30 percent of our local economy is based on medical marijuana, somewhat less than the one-third estimated in Mendocino County by a bank executive there. Growing medical marijuana is an important cottage industry in Lake County and several thousand of our neighbors and friends grow responsibly, respect the land and also earn an income legally under California law. Many have lived here for decades, raising their families here.
I think Brown and Comstock are trying to run them all out of the county because of a few bad apples, and by violating the rights guaranteed to medical marijuana patients under state law. They might subject the county to costly lawsuits. Deal with the bad apples, but don”t throw out the entire truckload.
I would like to urge the board to reject this ordinance and let the committee finish its work.
Ron Green, Attorney-at-Law
Lower Lake
