MEDICAL MARIJUANA RULES CONFUSED UNDER RULING

DA Says Big Commercial Grows Still the Target

Recent court decisions have muddied the already unclear waters of
medical marijuana law in California, but in Mendocino County District
Attorney Meredith Lintott said it will be business as usual.

Last week Mendocino County Superior Court Judge John Behnke ruled
that the medical marijuana possession limits established by
voter-approved Measure B could not stand as written in light of the
California Appellate Court decision in People v. Kelly.

In the Kelly decision, the court ruled that the statewide medical
marijuana possession limit of six mature or 12 immature plants and
eight ounces of marijuana was unconstitutional because the limits
were an amendment by the legislature to the Compassionate Use Act
which legalized medical marijuana but contained no possession limits.

In the ruling, judges wrote that the legislature cannot amend a voter
initiative unless the initiative permits it. The CUA does not.

Based on that ruling, Behnke ruled that if the legislature cannot
amend the CUA than neither can an individual county.

Without Measure B or the statewide limits established by Proposition
420, medical marijuana possession limits are now in flux.

"For right in the present day, now, there are no limits," Lintott said.

Lintott said the lack of a limit will not change how her office
prosecutes marijuana cultivation cases. She said her attorneys will
continue to focus on large commercial marijuana gardens.

"That will remain our chief concern," she said.

The District Attorney's Office will continue to review cases as they
come in and take into account all of the evidence gathered before
making a charging decision.

"We do reject a certain amount of cases," Lintott said.

Because the current legal rulings remove some of the protection for
medical marijuana patients enacted under the state's regulations (now
struck down), suspects who go to trial for growing marijuana and wish
to mount a medical marijuana defense will have to provide evidence
and witnesses to prove that they had a medical marijuana
recommendation and that all of the marijuana they had was for medical use.

Calls to the Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory Board for comment
were not returned Friday, but on their website the group wrote that
it was a confusing time for medical marijuana patients.

"Some overzealous Deputies are likely to regard the current situation
as open season on patients, who do not currently have any particular
number of protected plants," the group wrote on their website. The
board encourages anyone who has a negative contact with the Mendocino
County Sheriff's Office to contact the MMMAB.