MARIJUANA AND SAUSAGES

O.C. Supervisors Debate Cannabis ID Cards

The legendary 19th century Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once
remarked that if you wanted to retain respect for laws and sausages it
was best not to watch them being made. That admonition came to mind as
we watched the Orange County Board of Supervisors hold a hearing and
begin the long process of making a policy on medical cannabis
identification cards that would bring the county into compliance with
state law and common sense.

The hearing left little doubt as to where those stood who were willing
to take the time and trouble to come to a public meeting and let their
opinions be known. Beyond District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who
opposed the idea of ID cards and made a case for absolute federal
supremacy on medical marijuana, patients, doctors, advocates, people
who run medical cannabis cooperatives and ordinary citizens spoke out.
By our count (we may have missed a couple) it was 28 in favor of
implementing a medical marijuana ID card program and one against.

Then the board took over, and things got confusing. Chairman Chris
Norby's original motion, to direct county staff to develop a policy on
medical marijuana ID cards in 90 days, failed, with only Supervisor
John Moorlach joining him. Then Supervisor Patricia Bates explained
that she could support the idea of a study of the issue that would
include considering the effects of similar programs in other counties
on law enforcement and health departments and the status of San Diego
County's challenge to the state law that mandates counties to
implement ID cards, questions she didn't think had been answered
definitively yet.

Then Supervisor Bill Campbell said that if the questions Supervisor
Bates was asking were incorporated into Chairman Norby's original
motion, he could support it. After a bit of back-and-forth, Chairman
Norby incorporated those and other questions, and the revised motion
passed four to one, with Supervisors Norby, Moorlach, Campbell and
Bates supporting it.

The biggest disappointment of the day was newly seated Supervisor
Janet Nguyen, who said she believed that the doctrine of federal
supremacy was what counted, and that federal law trumps state law.
That simply reflects ignorance on this issue. The U.S. Supreme Court
has had two cases before it regarding the Compassionate Use Act, and
both times it has explicitly declined to invoke federal supremacy and
invalidate the medical marijuana laws of California and 11 other states.

There are valid complaints to be made about this compromise. State
law, in the form of Senate Bill 420, mandates that counties put a
medical marijuana patient ID card system in place, not that they
dither and dawdle. County governments are subdivisions of the state
government, not of the federal government. One can understand taking
time to study the issue and do it right, but in the end the
supervisors must institute a program or be lawbreakers, pure and simple.

Supervisor Norby is to be commended for putting this issue on the
agenda, and all the supervisors did well in conducting a lengthy
hearing that sometimes became emotional in a dignified and respectful
manner. And with the final vote in favor of creating a policy draft,
they made progress on the issue - not as much as we might have liked,
but progress.