25 PLANTS PER PARCEL STANDS

Neither the votes nor the opinions behind them wavered as the
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors once again voted 3-2 Tuesday to
affirm the restriction on the number of medical marijuana plants
allowed on any one parcel of land to 25, regardless of the number of
qualified patients residing there.

The original decision was made at the board's Dec. 11 meeting after
being pushed back from its scheduled Nov. 6 date.

The item was first placed on the board's consent calendar for final
approval, but was removed for further discussion by 3rd District
Supervisor John Pinches.

"I want to record my vote opposing it," he said. "I feel that two
25-plant limits per parcel would have been more appropriate."

When the board opened the floor for public comment on the matter,
Pebbles Trippet, Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory Board adviser,
said the measure would be exclusionary to a large population of patients.

"It would discriminate against the joint tenant owners of land," she
said. "It would also discriminate against the majority of marijuana
patients who rent. This is not a good situation to put patients
in...I feel this is not speaking for the majority."

Tom Davenport said the board was opening up the county to legal
action if it passed the ordinance.

"The cultivation ordinance will not pass legal muster," he said. "You
don't need to take my word for it, but take a good long look at
fiscal responsibility. It's going to cost the county a lot of money
on a legal battle that they are going to lose."

Asked by 4th District Supervisor Kendall Smith about the legality of
the measure, County Counsel Jeanine Nadel said she had not
encountered any discrepancies.

A ballot initiative that, if passed by voters in the June 3 primary,
would repeal Measure G and institute the state medical marijuana
limits was also passed at Tuesday's meeting by a 4-1 vote.

On Nov. 8, 2000, Mendocino County voters approved Measure G, a
resolution calling for the decriminalization of personal use and
cultivation of up to 25 adult female marijuana plants or the
equivalent in dried marijuana, by a vote of 58 percent.

The current state medical marijuana limits are defined under Senate
Bill 420, under which qualified patients and/or their primary
caregivers may possess no more than eight ounces of dried marijuana
and/or six mature, or 12 immature, marijuana plants. The bill also
allows patients to possess larger amounts of marijuana when such
quantities are recommended by a physician.

Nadel said that if the supervisors' measure was passed by voters it
would not necessarily conflict with the 25-plant per parcel limit
because it could refer to more than one grower equaling 25 plants
total per parcel.

Fifth District Supervisor David Colfax, the board's only other
dissenter besides Pinches, said the restriction would only serve to
confuse the already fractured county law.

"I don't think we have a grasp of the implications of what this is
about," he said. "This is just an action that only further
complicates our involvement with some of these issues."

Before being passed, the motion was moved for approval by 1st
District Supervisor Michael Delbar and was seconded by Smith.