MORE MEDICAL MARIJUANA ISSUES LIGHT UP

On July 20, 2010, the Delta City Council voted not to seek a public
vote on opting out of allowing new medical marijuana dispensaries in
their jurisdiction. The savings from not putting the issue on the
ballot is estimated to be $3,500-5,000.

City Attorney Mike Schottelkotte said the council could adopt an
ordinance outright, have public discussion to get input from the
community, or send out questionnaires with the utility bills among
other options. "The whole purpose would be saving the cost of the
election. The cost estimate of $5,000 was out there and it might be a
large waste. There has not been any public interest at all in the
public moratorium meetings in the past," said Schottelkotte.

Downfalls of avoiding a vote include not getting broad-based community
input. One area of public concern was with sick individuals, or those
that care for them, growing their own marijuana. "The council cannot
do anything about that. That will remain forever there, unless there
is another amendment," said Schottelkotte, adding that the
constitution said nothing about private interests.

It is a fine line for communities to resist expanding the
constitutional mandate, an option which was not extended to individual
communities. "That's the prerogative that you have. You can take it
head on, without public input. You'll probably want some, but it
doesn't have to be in an election. If you take the option to opt out,
the people can have it considered by the whole electorate-at someone
else's expense," said Schottelkotte.

Such a situation could arise if the public petitioned to change
regulations that already exist.

Many communities are looking to neighboring communities in the hope
that another community will generate meaningful legislation on the
matter. Such duplication of legislation is often more cost effective
with a presumed lower risk of litigation. Toward that end, Delta
contacted various municipalities and the results varied greatly.

Delta City Clerk Jolene Nelson said that one community was thinking
that they would allow the existing dispensary to stay, but that if it
went out of business, future dispensary applications would be denied.

Schottelkotte said he thought jurisdictions who were adopting plans to
allow dispensaries to operate until they failed and then not to let
other dispensaries operate were "on slippery ground." "You cannot
legislate to create a monopoly," he said.

Schottelkotte said that he thought any community who did exercise
their option to opt out would be on good solid ground. "This is not
part of the constitutional mandate. There is no conflict," he said
adding that there was more time to address the issue. The only time
pressure was if the council wanted to put it to a vote of the people
because ballot wording deadlines are imminent.

City Manager Joe Kerby agreed that if putting the issue on the ballot
was not chosen, then there was no rush. "There is a moratorium until
May next year," he said, adding that it would behoove the marijuana
businesses to know where the legislation was going to land. "There may
be expense that they would go to that if you weren't going to allow it
would be wasted money on their behalf," said Kerby.

John Thomas, who operates Green Solutions, spoke to the council saying
that he would have state licensing fees due soon. "As of September 1,
they want to see if the dispensary is growing 70 percent of their
product," said Thomas, adding that the state licensing fees to operate
a dispensary could run as high as $27,000. Thomas said that his
business will be grandfathered in since it was already in existence,
but that he is still required to provide background checks and routine
security data to the authorities.

"If he's able to generate 70 percent (of the marijuana he sells which
is grown on site, or on an approved off-premises site), and that he
opened before the moratorium, he's free," said Schottelkotte. "He
can't apply for any type of building permit, or development,
expansion, variance, or taps, that would create some sort of expansion
of the existing building without violating the moratorium," said
Schottelkotte, adding that the moratorium legislation was
insufficient. "It's wide open for anyone else. It's a mess," said
Schottelkotte.

The Council decided not to incur the expense of putting the issue to a
vote of the people.They will consider their options until the May
moratorium deadline forces the next round of decisions.