MENDOCINO DOUBLES POT LIMIT

Medical Marijuana Users Can Grow 25 Plants For Personal Consumption

Medical marijuana users in Mendocino County can grow twice as much pot under
revised guidelines announced Thursday by District Attorney Norm Vroman.

Users will be allowed to grow as many as 25 plants for personal medical use.
The old limit was 12, with six flowering.

"We reached that conclusion by talking to the marijuana users and their
caregivers, and they were able to convince me that they're not good enough
gardeners to make six plants produce enough marijuana to keep them in
marijuana, keep them in medicine," Vroman said.

The new guidelines eliminate distinctions between mature and immature
plants, outdoor and indoor cultivation.

Mendocino County still allows considerably fewer plants than neighboring
Sonoma County, where medical marijuana users can grow 99 plants.

But Vroman said he's unlikely to prosecute anyone with a legitimate medical
claim, regardless of the number of plants they grow -- in part because of
two recent Sonoma County cases, including one in which a jury acquitted two
men who grew 600 plants for a medical marijuana club.

In the other case, a defendant growing 110 plants for his personal use was
acquitted.

"I'm not dim-witted," Vroman said Thursday. "I'm not going to try and
reinvent the wheel."

On the other hand, he said someone with 7 pounds of packaged pot and $60,000
in cash isn't likely to have much luck with a medical defense. "We didn't
just fall off the cabbage truck here," he said.

Mendocino was the first county to issue medical marijuana guidelines after
voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996.

Vroman and Sheriff Tony Craver supported the initiative and jointly issued
the original guidelines in 1999.