THE DOWN-LOW ON THE GET-HIGH FROM AN OLD HAND ON MEDICAL CANNABIS (PART 1)

Greetings Arcata,

I've been reading with great interest the ongoing conundrum regarding
medical cannabis access in Arcata and the greater Humboldt County
area. I humbly submit my observations to you, in the hope that it may
provide an experienced and alternative perspective for your
consideration, as the City struggles to facilitate a meaningful
implementation model that protects both qualified individuals and the
community at large.

The greatest obstacle to achieving a meaningful implementation model
in Arcata is ignorance of the facts on the ground. Each "side" of
this equation sees through filters that need to be explored, if you
are to reach understanding of the middle ground here. There are many
assumptions that are being acted on without verification of their
accuracy. I will attempt to clarify them for you here, according to
my understanding of the issues.

Dispensaries

Contrary to popular belief, the dispensation of medical cannabis
through a retail model is NOT protected under state laws. For years
now, such dispensaries have operated in a "quasi-legal" or "grey
market," where certain communities tolerate or license and tax them,
while others seek to ban them or regulate them out of existence.

California laws do protect certain classes of qualified individuals
by offering them Qualified Immunity from prosecution under California
statutes. These are Patients, Primary caregivers and their lawful
assistants. Also, legitimate garden collectives and cooperatives are
allowed under state laws. However, a dispensary may not act as a
primary caregiver. Likewise, garden collectives should not sell
cannabis, as the medicine they grow is shared amongst the members.
They can pay salaries to the members who grow, and they can
contribute their time, money and skills toward the cultivation of
their cannabis. They do not need a "middle man," in the form of a
retail dispensary, to achieve their legitimate and lawful goals.

Cooperatives are a good replacement for retail dispensaries.
Unfortunately, hardly any actually exist at this point in time. A
legitimate cooperative must operate as a not-for-profit consumer
cooperative, under the California Corporations Code. Such a
cooperative may network its membership with one another, linking
patients to primary caregivers or garden collectives. Cooperatives
need not sell cannabis either. Rather, they can provide genuine
network services, so that all of their members have direct access.
Even if they do dispense cannabis, they must ensure that all such
medicine comes from legitimate medical gardens and goes directly to
their members.

Most dispensaries do not meet these criteria. Instead, they purchase
cannabis from ANY source (mostly black market) and they re-sell it to
qualified patients for a profit. They do nothing to ensure the
legality of their sources or the quality of their products, nor do
they provide consistency in strains or affordability of access to
their patients. In short, retail dispensaries are NOT the solution to
the problem of direct access. They are an obstacle to that goal.

Grow Houses

Contrary to local custom and belief, the legality of a cannabis
garden has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it's grown indoors,
outside or in a greenhouse.

The attempts of your Planning Commission to legislate on this issue
are quite beyond the scope of their actual authority. For example, an
owner of a house can convert it to any use, so long as it doesn't
create blight or safety issues for the neighborhood. While many such
commissions (and their counterparts in homeowner associations) can
harass homeowners for anything from fences that are too tall, to the
color paint one uses on the exterior of one's home, telling a
qualified patient that they cannot grow their own cannabis in their
own home would be tantamount to violating both the rights of
homeowners or renters and the rights of patients, and would be easy
grounds for a class action lawsuit.

It would be far more productive for your city to attempt to separate
legitimate gardens from those that seek to take advantage of patients
by utilizing their paper-work without actually taking care of their
medical needs. Also, any indoor garden should have to abide by local
fire and building codes (in regards to safety and structural
integrity), to ensure the safety of the neighborhood and to protect
the home from damages.

These are the legitimate issues for your Planning Commission to
address, not whether or not people may grow cannabis in their own
homes. The idea that police are helpless and unable to investigate
the legitimacy of a grow house is absurd. They manage to harass
legitimate patients all the time (especially those on fixed incomes).
Your local drug task force is more than capable of investigating any
grow-house. And your district attorney would prosecute them if the
police investigation shows fraud being perpetrated against the patients.

The problems here are two-fold. First, the drug task-forces are more
interested in money and assets than in protecting the public... so if
a grow house or dispensary manages to "contribute" enough money to
the right people or charities, their garden will be left alone.

This obviously leaves the door wide open for large-scale marijuana
production, regardless of whether or not it's a legitimate cannabis
garden. Second, when police do "investigate" a cannabis garden, they
almost never bother to confirm the information posted, placing even
the most legitimate medical garden at risk while complicating the
District Attorney's job immensely.

In other words, if the only cases law enforcement brings to the D.A.
for prosecution are legitimate gardens, or at least questionable, the
D.A. is forced to not bring charges (since they have a burden of
proof to maintain). Likewise, if the police don't even arrest the
actual criminals, the D.A. has no recourse to pursue them either.

Your biggest problem here is that the law enforcement community and
the large-scale criminal organizations are actually on the same side
(the side with the money), while we legitimate medical patients and
you innocent neighbors are caught in the middle. In the U.S.A., if
you are accused of a crime, you need at least $5000 to $10,000 in
order to "prove" your innocence.

So, in cannabis cases, only well off patients and criminals with a
lot of money can buy their innocence, while most real patients cannot
afford a proper defense. The whole system stinks, and the medical
cannabis issue brings this to light.