RED BLUFF IS DEFYING THE LAW

The Red Bluff City Council decision to ban medical marijuana
collectives and cultivation is either a shocking display of ignorance
of basic civic principles or an outright defiance of the rule of law -
likely, both.

State law and over a decade of legal precedent establish the rights of
patients to cultivate medical marijuana. The Red Bluff council and its
attorney needn't look further than Butte County to affirm this simple
fact. In a decision the California Supreme Court let stand last month,
the courts affirmed that seven Butte County patients could not be
denied the right to collectively cultivate marijuana. State law is
state law - no matter what part of California you happen to reside
in.

Red Bluff's decision to defy the law is akin to the segregationists of
the South refusing to acknowledge the Civil Rights Act in 1968. Like
George Wallace standing in that schoolhouse doorway, the Red Bluff
City Council's action will soon be reduced to nothing more than a
symbolic act of hatefulness.

Patients will easily have this ordinance overturned by the courts, but
it's too bad that local taxpayers will be stuck with the legal bill.

F. Aaron Smith

Marijuana Policy Project

Santa Rosa