SUTTER COUNTY SUPERVISORS REJECT MEDICAL MARIJUANA CARDS

A plan for Sutter County to issue identification cards for medical
marijuana users died Tuesday night, as a divided Board of Supervisors
rejected the proposal.

Three of five supervisors voted to block the ordinance, which would
have let county residents pay an annual fee for a card marking them as
using pot with a doctor's approval.

The rejection leaves Sutter and Colusa as the last two counties
resisting the state's ID card program -- and exposed lingering
resistance to legalized cannabis use, 14 years after the state ballot
measure that first opened up its use.

Foes attacked ID systems in other counties as vulnerable to abuse by
recreational users, and called for tighter restrictions on the drug's
sale and for the state to run any such local program without county
help.

"The ones who need it should get it, but I can't support this until
the state changes the law. I want to see it at a pharmacy and not in
dispensaries," said Supervisor Larry Munger, who declared the card
program a nonstarter in "the most conservative county in
California."

"I agree it has some medical uses, but I'm also a teacher and I see
firsthand how substance abuse wrecks children's lives, their dreams,
their futures," said Supervisor Jim Whiteaker, who teaches at Yuba
City High School.

Whiteaker appeared to shrug off a warning in a report by the county
Human Services Department that refusing to join the state ID program
could invite a law suit, saying California turned down a county
proposal in 2005 that the state issue the cards itself.

"It's 2010 now, and the state hasn't done anything to us," he
said.

Even before the thumbs-down from the board, a local supporter of the
county ID system upbraided leaders for delaying it for so long.

"While it took 14 years to go forward, this hearing today is a step in
the right direction," said Linda resident Carmela Garcia. "But it's
disappointing that despite the stance of the state and your own health
department in 2005, (the board's) response was no. This is way, way,
long overdue."

Sutter County card applicants would have needed the recommendation of
a state-licensed doctor to use cannabis as treatment for
cancer-related pain, glaucoma and other conditions. Users would have
paid $128 a year for ID, or half that for Medi-Cal patients, with
county and state splitting the fee.

Proposition 215, which California voters approved in 1996, cleared the
path for medical pot use despite the federal government's decades-old
ban on the drug. However, a group of holdouts including San Diego and
San Bernardino counties sued the state to block the ballot measure and
avoid having to approve dispensaries or issue identification to users.
A San Diego judge rejected the suit in 2006 and the state Supreme
Court refused to take the case last year.

Last week, Sheriff J. Paul Parker stopped short of supporting the use
of medical pot but endorsed the ID card program, saying county records
would make it easier for law enforcement to distinguish medical users
of the drug from abusers and traffickers.

A federal announcement in October that it would avoid prosecuting
cases in states allowing medical cannabis use was reason enough to
back the county ID card plan, according to Supervisor Stan Cleveland,
who announced his support last week to the Appeal-Democrat and was one
of two dissenters Tuesday. But Larry Montna voted against the
proposal, saying he remained unwilling to defy a federal ban with no
exception for medical purposes.

James Gallagher's dissent was far more lukewarm, based mainly on
California fending off court challenges to Prop. 215 and the 2004
state Senate bill that set up the ID card program, run by the state
Department of Health.

"I spent four years at Berkeley and knew classmates without a thing
wrong with them, and yet they managed to get themselves cards," he
said. "The body politic, in Sutter County anyway, does not want this
but we're at the point where legally, we're obligated to implement
this program. I still say the people of this county don't want to, but
we have to."

Rejection of Sutter County's ID card plan was the day's second setback
for cannabis advocates in the North State. Earlier, Tehama County
supervisors OK'd new restrictions on marijuana growing that included
requiring county registration of any land used to grow the plant.