LAWSUIT SHOULD BE TOSSED

Whichever judge in Mendocino County is assigned the lawsuit filed
Friday by local medical marijuana growers should toss it out. At the
very least, the judge should deny consideration of the injunction
until the California Supreme Court rules on whether the limits on
medical marijuana growing set by the state are constitutional.

If they are, then it seems to us that local communities also have the
right to regulate the growing of what has become much more than a nuisance.

Here again we have pot growers upset that their desire to grow as
much pot as possible might be thwarted by a legitimate effort on the
county's part to make reasonable rules about the amount of pot a
medical marijuana patient can grow in one place. Right now the county
has a limit of 25 plants per legal parcel (still limiting to six per
person as per state law), which these folks say is illegal under Prop. 215.

Marijuana activists for years have been saying it's about "access to
medicine." Oh please. We can only wonder what they are doing with all
the pot they want to grow. Under the state's medical marijuana law,
Prop. 215 - which growers have been abusing for years - selling the
marijuana is illegal, as is distributing it through so-called
dispensaries. And the courts have made it clear that "caregiver" is
also no longer a legitimate excuse to simply grow more pot.

But a 25-plant per legal parcel limit is unreasonable?

And, on Friday we were told by this local group that the county's
idea for a 99-plant limit for cooperatives will be challenged too.

It has become ever more clear that passing Prop. 215 was a mistake.
All across the state, real medical marijuana patients have been
shoved aside by greedy growers who just want to use the badly written
and unspecific law to maintain their marijuana gold mines.

(Keep in mind that by suing to strike down the state's medical
marijuana regulations - in other words getting back to unlimited pot
growing, the issue now before the California Supreme Court - these
patient advocates' also happily risk reversing important real patient
protections on arrest and transportation issues that the same state
law also provides.)

This county has done everything it can to uphold the spirit of the
medical marijuana law and has even further helped defend legitimate
growers with the sheriff's zip tie program. But the growers are never happy.

The courts need to take a stand now in favor of a community's right
to protect the health and safety of all its citizens, not just its pot growers.