MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Twelve years ago Jeanette Vitullo was hiking through the Santa Ana
Mountain Range in Orange County, six months pregnant with her first son.

As she and her husband, Dante Vitullo, reminisced about that time,
they smiled at one another, remembering her vitality.

"She was one tough woman," Dante said, glancing at his wife. "She still is."

Today, Jeanette says she struggles just to walk around her front yard
and play with her 3-year-old daughter, Faith, without getting winded
and having her feet hurt.

About 10 years ago Jeanette started showing symptoms of lupus, an
auto-immune disease that turns a person's body upon itself, and
developed rheumatoid arthritis.

Medical marijuana, she says, eases the pain and helps her live her life.

"It works wonders, it really does," Jeanette said. "Especially when
you're chasing a 3-year-old around. It allows me to chase after her."

Both Jeanette and Dante-who broke his neck in a roll-over car
accident in 2002-say they rely on Del Norte County's current medical
marijuana ordinance, which allows a person to grow up to 99 plants in
a 100-square-foot radius and be in possession of up to a pound of
processed weed.

On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors will consider lowering
those numbers to only allow medical marijuana patients and growers to
have six mature plants or 12 immature plants, and be in possession of
eight ounces or less of dried, processed buds.

These limits, the Vitullos say, are not enough.

"Who do these supervisors think they are?" Dante said. "They want to
beat on the medical cannabis community."

For Dante and his wife, having enough medical marijuana comes down to
economics and safety. They don't grow anywhere near the maximum
amount of plants allowed, but they both said the proposed limits
won't provide enough medicine for them.

Their plants are subject to the same hazards as any other crops,
Dante said, such as pests and mold.

"It's a gamble," he said.

If the plants don't produce, then Dante and Jeanette must find their
medical marijuana elsewhere, and that can be expensive and
potentially dangerous.

"What are we going to do, hit the streets?" Dante said.

Neither Dante or Jeanette want to buy marijuana from drug dealers
because of the safety concern, and going to a medical marijuana
dispensary is just too expensive because an ounce, they said, costs
nearly $400.

"Growing is not cheap either, it just provides more," Dante said. If
he and his wife bought medical marijuana from a dispensary, they
estimate it would cost nearly $40,000 over the course of the year,
which is more than four times what it would cost for them to grow their own.

"The only one that's benefitting from this is the dispensary," Dante said.

Jeanette said pharmaceuticals are not an option for her.

"There's a lot of side effects that go along with the
pharmaceuticals," she said. "You're taking four different types of
medication for one pill."

When Jeanette started taking pills to combat the effects of lupus,
she said she needed nearly a dozen medications, which became
expensive and loaded her body with chemicals.

"I don't want to be a walking zombie when I can use medical cannabis
and get the same effects from it," Jeanette said. "It's healthy and
it's natural."

Jeanette replaced most of her pharmaceuticals with natural
supplements, and uses marijuana as a pain reliever, an
anti-inflammatory and a nausea inhibitor. One of her main uses is to
build her appetite.

She's dropped nearly 60 pounds over the past couple years because
she's had several rounds of chemotherapy to fight the lupus. With
medical marijuana she plans on adding to her frail frame.

"She's kind of a miracle really," Dante said. "She's able to live a
more productive life.

In April, the Board of Supervisors first considered lowering pot
limits in the county to six plants and four ounces based on a
recommendation from the Community Action and Prevention Alliance
(formerly the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Prevention Coalition),
which is made up of law enforcement, social services and health officials.

But due to backlash from the medical marijuana community, the
realization that no one who uses marijuana as medicine was consulted
in the decision-making and the fact that proposed guidelines went
beyond the minimum numbers mandated by the state, the supervisors
decided to table the issue.

"Now it's coming off the table and the supervisors will vote on it,"
said District 5 Supervisor David Finigan. "The motion is just to
bring us in line with state standards and hopefully that's upheld."

Del Norte's current limits are some of the most liberal in
California. Most counties only allow six mature plants or 12
seedlings, and eight ounces of processed medical marijuana.

Humboldt County has no limit on the number of plants that can be
grown so long as the canopy area does not exceed 100 square feet. It
also sets the processed possession limit at three pounds.

A recent ruling by the California 2nd District Court of Appeals in
Los Angeles adds a new wrinkle to the debate.

That court found that limits on medical marijuana possession and
cultivation are unconstitutional, because the state law allowing the
use of medical marijuana-Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act
(CUA) of 1996-was a voter initiative and subsequent
legislation-Senate Bill 420-that enacted limits was not approved by voters.

"The legislature ... cannot amend an initiative, such as the the CUA,
unless the initiative grants the Legislature authority to do so," the
opinion reads. "The CUA does not grant the Legislature the authority
to amend it without voter approval."

Finigan didn't seem too concerned with the Appeal Court ruling.
Instead, he said, he would rather side with the majority of counties
in California and let the legislature make the ultimate decision.

"I heard there was a court ruling that was going to cloud the issue,"
he said. "If there's an issue ... then I would expect the legislature
to act on behalf of the (majority of) counties."

District 1 Supervisor Leslie McNamer, who originally asked to table
the issue in April, is a little more apprehensive about the ruling.

"If that states that it's unconstitutional, then how can we set
anything?" she said. "I think some of the board would just like to
set it (the limits). I'm just a little leery because of potential lawsuits."

Since the Board of Supervisors decided to delay making a decision on
medical marijuana limits, McNamer has worked closely with proponents
of the current county ordinance to find a median figure everyone
could agree on. Most of these people, she said, want to see the
limits somewhere in the middle when it comes to cultivation.

"The medical marijuana community would rather see it set between 40
and 45 plants," McNamer said. "I think because that would meet the
needs of the people that ingest it ... It takes a lot more for people
that ingest rather than smoke it."

The Board of Supervisors can still amend the limits at Tuesday's
meeting, and if the board adopts the ordinance, it will not take
affect for 31 days.

Dante and Jeanette said they hope the supervisors reconsider the
pending decision because it will negatively impact medical marijuana
patients and growers, such as themselves, who are in compliance and
not using the law to sell marijuana illegally.

"A few bad apples can't spoil it for the rest of us," Dante said.
"Let's not pick on the people like Jeanette and the people who need
it .. I don't want to be a felon, and she doesn't want to be a felon."

"It's breaking up innocent, happy homes that don't need to be messed
with," Jeanette said.

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IF YOU GO

What: Del Norte County Board of Supervisors meeting

When: 10 a.m. Tuesday

Where: Flynn Administration Center, 981 H St.