SUPERVISORS POISED TO FREEZE POT COLLECTIVES AMID PROLIFERATION

Supervisors will consider Tuesday freezing the number of new medical
marijuana cooperatives in Kern County for at least 45 days while they
consider whether to regulate the 22 that have exploded onto the scene
in the past year.

In March 2009, supervisors repealed an ordinance that had limited the
number of medical marijuana dispensaries allowed in Kern County to six.

None of them liked the decision. All worried it would bring more
medical marijuana businesses, organized as collectives, to Kern County.

But they felt pressure on several fronts to act.

Growing business

There are 19 medical marijuana co-ops and collectives in the county
areas of metropolitan Bakersfield. They are tucked into strip malls
and shop buildings in east, south and northwest Bakersfield and in
Oildale. Two more are in Lake Isabella; one sits in Mojave.

From the outside most look nondescript, even abandoned. But subtle
hints of green -- a cross, an arrow or the numbers of the street
address -- bear subtle witness to what lies inside.

The Kern River Collective just south of Trout's on North Chester
Avenue in Oildale has windows painted with beach scenes, looking more
pet shop than pot shop.

But the small green crossed white flag atop the sand castle on a side
window clues medical marijuana patients there is a pharmacy in the building.

Other cooperatives celebrate their presence.

The sign for California's Best Co-op, just a couple of blocks closer
to the Kern River on North Chester, is visible from a distance and
painted green crosses fill the two windows facing out onto Oildale's main drag.

New rules

Supervisor Mike Maggard asked county lawyers to investigate new
regulation of cooperatives earlier this month.

All the supervisors worried, then, that eliminating the ordinance
would open the door to a flood of new medical marijuana venues and
bring crime to neighborhoods.

But federal officials had stopped raiding medical marijuana shops
after President Barack Obama took office and guidelines established
by the California Attorney General's office made it clear that
non-profit collectives or cooperatives could distribute pot legally
under state law. In addition, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood
refused to participate in an ordinance that required his office to
permit medical marijuana operations.

"That put the board in a tough situation," Youngblood said.

So supervisors killed the ordinance.

Now, with 22 businesses operational, supervisors will rethink their decision.

Maggard said he is interested in limiting clusters of collectives --
four sit in a less than two-mile stretch of North Chester, bookending
Standard Elementary and Middle schools. But there are many other
rules on the table.

"It's appropriate for us to call for a moratorium on more
(collectives)," he said.

Steve Esselman, who lives near two of the Oildale collectives, said
he supports new rules.

"If they can't shut them down, perhaps they put a limit on how many
there are in one area," he said. "Whether to legalize it or not, I
don't really have an opinion. I'm just a guy who doesn't want his
kids saturated by dispensaries when they ride down the street on
their bicycles."

Inside story

Kern County Medicinal Collective is perched in a new strip of office
space on Pegasus Drive amid radio stations and industrial businesses.

The lobby is clean and well-lit with an armed security guard and
water, sodas and snacks for members.

Operation manager Jarrod Jarvis said the member-owned, non-profit
business spent months talking to lawyers, Kern County sheriff's
deputies and the Attorney General's office about the state's medical
marijuana laws and the practical legalities of operating a collective
before they opened their doors.

The collective hosted sheriff's narcotics team leaders for an
hour-long inspection when they opened and keep an open-door policy
with law enforcement.

Jarvis said the goal is to make sure there aren't grounds for
officers to close the collective and arrest the employees.

"We're here to try and co-exist," he said.

Members grow the marijuana and it is only given to members who donate
money to keep the business running.

Four staff members are paid for their work and the business can
maintain only $50,000 in profit as an operating reserve.

Any other profit, Jarvis said, is given to charities in Kern County.
So far Kern County Medicinal has donated 15,000 pounds of canned food
to the Alliance Against Family Violence and nearly 1,000 toys to the
Alliance and Mercy Hospital, he said.

Jarvis said they believe they are following the law.

But he and other collective employees and volunteers said they can
never be sure they won't be targeted by a law enforcement raid.

"That could happen any day," he said. "I'm not up all night about it.
If it happens it happens."

Larry Burch lost both of his legs in a motorcycle accident in October.

He has been prescribed traditional medicine for the pain he continues
to suffer, but he said nothing is as good as marijuana.

"Society itself has always taught that marijuana is bad. It's not.
It's the best thing going," he said.

Criminal matter

When the first cooperatives opened in Bakersfield after the repeal of
the county ordinance, the Sheriff's Department raided the operators
of California Compassionate Co-op and Green Cross Compassionate
Co-op. Charges are still pending in Kern County Superior Court.

Law enforcement action triggered a backlash.

Attorney Phil Ganong has brought a civil rights lawsuit against Kern
County on behalf of the members of California Compassionate, saying
Kern County's sheriff is not allowed to ignore the state law that
made medical marijuana legal just because he doesn't agree with it.

Sheriff Youngblood still believes that all the 22 cooperatives and
collectives are illegal -- even under state law.

"To abide by the law you've got to be a non-profit, (have a) limited
number of plants, limited amount of pot and a caregiver," he said.
"When you start advertising, in my opinion, you are a dispensary.
Dispensaries are illegal."

Deputy District Attorney Michael Yraceburn said the caregiver role is
required by law.

A caregiver is, Yraceburn said, "someone who is intimately part of
the medical care and housing of a person who has a recommendation
(not prescribed) for the use of marijuana."

But California Attorney General Brown's opinion on California's
medical marijuana law states that member groups can share medical
marijuana within the collective as long as the organization is a non-profit.

"No way could a qualified patient designate a cooperative as a
caregiver," Ganong said. But "there's no debate that a qualified
caregiver can go to a cooperative to obtain medicine."

Final word

Supervisors will attempt to wade into the sticky legal situation Tuesday.

Ganong, far from disagreeing, believes a fair attempt at adding new
rules will benefit everyone.

"We need to have a consortium of concerned interests to have a
memorandum of understanding or some policy agreement so that
cooperatives have some certainty," he said. "Let's sit together and
have a meaningful conversation and come up with some regulations that
make sense."

Jarvis, of Kern County Medicinal, said the moratorium on new
collectives and cooperatives is definitely an action supervisors must take.

Los Angeles has limited the number of collectives and cooperatives
allowed there, he said, and Kern County real estate offices are being
flooded by calls from former L.A. operators looking for a new home in Kern.

"If the county doesn't put a set limitation on this -- a reasonable
number -- this time next year there are going to be more than 150
here," Jarvis said.