Moratorium extended for a year, until October 2011, by Visalia City
Council on medical-marijuana dispensaries and collective grows

Visalia City Council members earlier tonight voted, 5-0, to extend for
a year a moratorium on medical-marijuana dispensaries in the city. The
moratorium also prohibits "collective or cooperative cultivation and
distribution enterprises."

The extension starts Oct. 19 and ends Oct. 18, 2011. Visalia officials
have stopped short of completely shutting down medical-marijuana
consumption or private "grows," but has outlawed dispensaries
themselves within the city limits of Visalia.

Proponents of medical marijuana and council members agreed that a vote
must be first taken in November on a state ballot measure, Prop. 19,
which conditionally legalizes marijuana, before any substantive
ordinance on medical marijuana can realistically be crafted for Visalia.

Terrill Brown, M.D., physician director of Medical Cannabis of
Visalia, is a proponent of medical marijuana, but opposes Prop. 19
because there is no provision in the legislation which protects the
rights of medicinal marijuana users.

Brown also said that current city code-enforcement actions in Visalia
which have effectively shut down private gardens have prevented
medical-marijuana users from growing their own medicine. Instead,
patients are forced to pay high prices, up to $70 for every eighth of
an ounce, to dispensaries located outside the Visalia city limits.