Pubdate: Thu, 17 May 2012
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559

MEASURE A'S A DOWNER

Ordinance's Flaws Outweigh Its Good Points

We're aware that medical-marijuana cultivation often has little or 
nothing to do with medicine. We also know that marijuana gardens can 
be a nuisance to neighbors, and that the number of gardens has 
increased exponentially in recent years. And we understand that Butte 
County's medical-marijuana-cultivation ordinance is an effort to 
lessen the nuisance factor.

Unfortunately, however, the ordinance does not solve the fundamental 
problem: how to enable all qualified patients to grow their own. 
That's a big reason why, following its passage on May 24, 2011, 
opponents quickly qualified a referendum petition and county 
supervisors were compelled to place Measure A on the June 5 ballot.

The ordinance's biggest shortcoming is that it forbids cultivation on 
parcels smaller than a half-acre. Many if not most of the parcels in 
the county are a half-acre or smaller, so the ordinance excludes a 
lot of qualified patients. (The county's prohibition of 
medical-marijuana dispensaries excludes many others from obtaining 
their medicine legally, notably those living in apartments or renters 
whose landlords forbid growing.)

Proponents of Measure A argue that "it sets up some simple rules to 
help people be good neighbors." Well, maybe, but it does so by 
prohibiting many qualified patients from growing anything at all. The 
measure favors large-scale growers while forbidding the little guys 
from growing their six plants for personal use.

The measure has other problems. It puts a burden on the county 
Department of Development Services, which would be tasked with 
collecting the doctor's recommendations of all the people involved in 
the cultivation of more than six plants. Employees would have to be 
trained in privacy laws under the federal Health Insurance 
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

And it would require the county to hire additional code-enforcement 
officers to make sure that cultivation guidelines are being met. The 
Sheriff's Office would be authorized to go on any cultivation site at 
any time, no warrant needed.

Taken together, these flaws in the ordinance render it defective. 
Voters should tell the supervisors to start over by voting NO on Measure A.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom