COUNTY DRAFTS RULES TO REIN IN POT DISPENSARIES

SANTA CRUZ -- In response to the uptick in medical marijuana
dispensaries, county leaders have drafted a long promised ordinance
that will require shops that sell the drug to get permits and follow
strict rules to ensure safe and equitable distribution.

The proposed regulation, which will be considered by the county Board
of Supervisors next week, even includes a goodwill clause that
requires dispensaries to provide marijuana to the sick even if they
don't have the money to pay for it.

"I don't think that's ever been done, and I think it's brilliant,"
said Santa Cruz attorney Ben Rice, who has fought to protect the
medical marijuana trade and is familiar with various city and county
laws. "Providing for the needy forces collectives to act with the
generosity that these folks claim to have."

The county's new ordinance comes in the wake of at least a half dozen
medical marijuana dispensaries opening in unincorporated areas. That
despite current county law that doesn't permit their operation.

"It's a medicine that should be available to people who need it,"
said county Supervisor Neal Coonerty, who helped spearhead the
drafting of regulations. "We want to regulate the medicine to make
sure that's how it's used and that it's available to patients."

In September, the county Board of Supervisors committed to developing
rules that would allow for medical marijuana distribution.

The city of Santa Cruz, which permits two dispensaries within its
city limits, is the only community in the county that now allows the
trade. Voter-approved Proposition 215 in 1996 gave dispensaries the
right to do business in California, but only select cities and
counties have authorized them.

The county's new ordinance does not limit the number of outlets that
can sell the drug, but it places restrictions on where they can open
and how they do business.

For example, the facilities must be "cooperatives", where members
grow and sell the drug, and they can't operate for profit. They're
also confined to commercially-zoned areas and must be at least 600
feet from a school.

Dispensaries already doing business in the county have a year after
the ordinance is enacted to comply with the new rules.

One of the clauses that worries Marc Whitehill, who opened the
Boulder Creek Collective late last year, is the prohibition on
advertising marijuana sales.

"I don't want to live in a community that has a bunch of pot ads just
as much as I don't want a red light district," he said. "But I do
want to communicate with the public about what I offer."

This week, Whitehill ran a full-page ad in the local weekly, Good
Times, promoting his shop's "55 percent lower" prices. The ad would
be prohibited under the new ordinance. Should the ordinance take
effect, Whitehill said he would honor the advertising restrictions.

Then there's the goodwill clause, which aims to benefit the poor by
not allowing a dispensary to deny membership or a sale because of a
person's "demonstrated financial inability."

The clause, explains county attorney Dana McRae who authored the
regulations, is meant to encourage cooperatives to share the ethical
responsibility of providing medicine to the poor.

How exactly that will be done is not spelled out in the ordinance.
But to make sure this is enforced, a handful of local attorneys have
begun talking about offering their services pro-bono to defend needy
patients who may be denied the drug.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss the
draft ordinance in anticipation of returning at a later date to
approve the regulation. The board is also expected to extend a
temporary moratorium on new dispensaries, which was put in place in
September until an ordinance is adopted.

Rice, best known for defending the rights of Santa Cruz-based
collective Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said most of the
tenets in the proposal look fair. He would like the regulations to
offer, however, greater guarantees of patient confidentiality and
safety testing of the drug.

"I'm largely satisfied and happy that there will finally be a little
rationality in this field," he said.

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PROPOSED RULES

The county has written an ordinance to regulate the growing number of
medical marijuana outlets in unincorporated communities. Among the
proposed tenets are:

- - Dispensaries must technically be 'cooperatives,' where members grow
and sell the drug.

- - Cooperatives can operate only in areas zoned for commercial use.
They can't open within 600 feet of a grade school and must get county
approval to open within 300 feet of a home.

- - Hours of operation are limited to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. if the co-op is
within 50 feet of a home.

- - No marijuana can be ingested on site.

- - Co-ops are limited to one identifying sign.

- - All marijuana must be labeled as grown indoors or outdoors and
whether pesticides were used to cultivate the crop.

- - Advertising of the sale of marijuana is prohibited, though limited
advertising of the co-op is allowed.