MEDICAL-MARIJUANA FACILITIES IN TULARE COUNTY TOLD TO CLOSE
DOWN

Owner In Goshen Is Petitioning Board To Reconsider
Ban

As owner of the Compassionate Cannabis Information Center in Goshen,
Tammy Murray is at the center of a county fight to rein in
distribution of medical marijuana.

Murray was told Thursday that she has 10 days to close her
1,000-customer dispensary or face criminal charges. She is petitioning
the Tulare County Board of Supervisors to reconsider its ban on
facilities like hers, but Murray fears that her pleas have fallen on
deaf ears.

"I don't know what I am going to do," she said. "I've been working for
two years to get to the point where I am. And now I'll have to start
all over again."

After stints as a social worker and in the real estate industry, the
single mother of two started working on the Compassionate Cannabis
center in 2007. She filed paperwork with the state and as a nonprofit
organization with the Internal Revenue Service.

The center operates with one employee in a strip mall just west of
Highway 99. Murray said she gets her customers by word-of-mouth and
from oncology clinics and veterans organizations. The customers come
from Kings, Tulare and Fresno counties for various grades of
marijuana, as well as food made from the plant.

Prices for one-eighth ounce of marijuana start at $20.

"We're fighting a lot of unfounded fears here," Murray said. "People
think the dispensaries are run by thugs. They're not."

Last month the Board of Supervisors voted to halt distribution of
marijuana in unincorporated areas. The ordinance took effect Thursday.
It does not affect medical-marijuana organizations within incorporated
cities.

Sheriff's Department officials said the county's six dispensaries are
out of compliance with both state and federal law.

Dispensaries, by the state's definition, have hundreds of patients and
operate for profit.

An estimated 10,000 people in Tulare County use medicinal
marijuana.

"We have deputies who will be going out to each of the dispensaries
and serving the owners with a copy of the ordinance," said Cpt. Mike
Boudreaux of the Sheriff's Department's investigations unit. "From
there, they will have 10 days to comply with the ordinance."

The dispensaries -- near Ivanhoe, Goshen, Earlimart, Tipton, Exeter and
Porterville -- were given the news Thursday.

Under the new county ordinance, no organization that operates as a
dispensary will be allowed in the unincorporated areas until the
distribution of medical marijuana is recognized by federal law,
Boudreaux said.

State law allows such collectives to grow marijuana or process
products for patients with prescriptions, but federal law prohibits
the sale of marijuana in any form.

"I'm ready. Shut 'em down," said Woody DeHaven, co-chairman of the
Goshen Planning Committee, the organization that serves as a governing
body for the community. "They're too close to a school, and they're
too close to a church that has youth activities. And the people who
associate with that place are not the kind of people you want near a
school."

DeHaven said he has no problem with medical marijuana, but he believes
it should distributed by a pharmacist like any other drug.

"If we're going to do it, do it right," he said.

If state and federal laws come into agreement, the county will limit
the number of facilities to three, and none of the dispensaries will
be allowed to operate near schools or allow customers to test the drug
on site.