BERKELEY PONDERS MARIJUANA RULES

As medical marijuana cooperatives pop up in the city, officials are trying
to put rules in place to govern them.

The City Council on Tuesday asked City Manager Weldon Rucker to draft rules
within the next month for granting business licenses and permits to
cooperatives.

Mayor Shirley Dean said the council wants to regulate the distribution
centers, where marijuana is made available to those with a doctor's
recommendation.

Four have opened in the city, most in retail areas. The co-ops don't have a
zoning designation and haven't been subject to zoning review, raising some
neighbors' concerns.

"I'm not going to comment on which are legal and which aren't," Dean said
of the co-ops. "It's really unclear. That's one of the things we have to
figure out."

The city also will enact a moratorium barring additional cannabis co-ops
until rules are in place.

"Obviously we don't want 20 of them in the same neighborhood," said
Councilman Kriss Worthington.

California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, allowing seriously ill
patients to grow and use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. There is
no provision for medical use of marijuana in federal law.

In March, Berkeley's council passed an ordinance allowing those with
chronic health conditions to grow 10 cannabis plants per year for medicinal
use.

Worthington wants no limit but tried to pass a compromised version in March
allowing 48 plants.

Berkeley's Community Health Commission recommended 144 plants -- the same
amount allowed in Oakland -- which amounts to six pounds per year.

"It should totally be up to the doctor," Worthington said. "I think any
limit is absurd."

Worthington said Wednesday he'll still fight for a more lenient ordinance.

Both Dean and Worthington noted that the city's ordinance allows patients
to have more than the allotted amount if directed by a doctor, which
Worthington said makes having limits pointless.

"There's a way to interpret the law to say you can have more, but to say
there's a loophole that allows more than 10 -- what are the police supposed
to do?" he said.