TULARE COUNTY'S MEDICAL-POT ORDINANCE CHALLENGED

Man Asks Judge to Block Enforcement

A man ordered by Tulare County officials to stop allowing medical
marijuana to be grown on land he leases north of Visalia is fighting
back by asking a judge to order the county to cease its efforts to
stop him.

And Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann could decide this
morning whether to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent
county agencies from continuing their efforts to have about 3,500
medical-marijuana plants cleared from the site near Highway 63 and the
St. Johns River.

The plants are being grown by people with doctors' recommendations to
use the drug to treat medical conditions.

Richard Daleman, who last year started a business subleasing portions
of the 5 acres of farmland he leases to fellow medical-marijuana
users, filed the application for the temporary restraining order
Wednesday afternoon.

Daleman said he has 40 clients assigned to small parcels to grow and
care for their own medical-marijuana plants.

One of them is Johnny Snow, a Visalia resident who has 87 plants
growing on the site, a few less than the 90 on his doctor's
recommendation. A copy of the recommendation is posted on a stick in
front of his plants, as it is on the plots of the other clients.

"It's a bully tactic," Snow said of the county's efforts to enforce
its medical-marijuana ordinance that he and Daleman say violates state
medical-marijuana laws.

"If he loses, I'm not ready to pull my plants," said Snow, who suffers
from hemochromatosis, a metabolic disorder that - among other things --
makes it difficult to eat.

Snow said he smokes about 5 pounds of marijuana a year to make him
hungry so he'll eat, and it also relieves his back pain.

It will take at least a couple more weeks of growing until the buds on
his most mature plants will have grown enough to use for treatment and
longer until all his plants are ready, he said.

If he pulls the plants now or if the county brings in people to clear
the site after its cease-and-desist deadline passes Saturday, Snow
said all the work and money he has invested in growing the plants will
be wasted and he would be left with nothing to help him treat his symptoms.

And, he added, he can't afford the $20,000 he estimates that it would
cost him to buy the medical marijuana he needs at a cooperative. Snow
said a lot is riding on the outcome of today's hearing for him and the
others who plant there.

"We're all waiting to see what happens. And we're hoping like hell we
don't have to pull them," he said of the plants.

Last week, Daleman and his landlord were among property owners and
renters at five locales in the unincorporated county given
cease-and-desist requests to stop growing because they were violating
the medical-marijuana ordinance that the county Board of Supervisors
passed in 2009.

Among its provisions, medical marijuana can be grown only in
commercially zoned areas and the grow sites have to be in enclosed
buildings with roofs.

Daleman's site is zoned for agriculture.

The letter Daleman received Aug. 31 only cites the zoning problems,
not that the plants are grown outdoors. He has erected

a chain-link fence around the site with slats inserted so the plants
aren't visible from the road.

His lawyer, John Ryan, said he barely had time to put together the
application for a restraining order against the county, file it with
the court Wednesday and get a hearing set for this morning, a day
before the county's deadline.

"Plaintiff currently operates a lawful business assisting patients
with valid medical marijuana [recommendations] to grow their own
marijuana in a secure setting," the motion states. "The zoning
ordinance imposes onerous and unjustified burdens on the legal
cultivation of medical marijuana ... by requiring that marijuana
cultivation occur entirely indoors in specially designed structures.

"The zoning ordinance is void, as it is the product of an irrational
animus against any form of legalized marijuana and against those who
grow it and use it as a group," it continues.

Ryan added that these "crazy burdens" drive up the costs for people
with a legitimate need for the drug.

Both Ryan and Daleman claim that the county's requirements violate
California's Compassionate Use Act, which voters in the state passed
in 1996 to allow the legal use of marijuana for medical treatment.

In the motion, Daleman is seeking the temporary restraining order so
he can continue allowing his clients to grow and harvest marijuana
while the court determines if the county's ordinance is valid.

This isn't the first challenge to that ordinance.

Foothill Growers Association Inc., a cooperative of about 100 people
with doctors' recommendations to use medical marijuana, challenged the
county's attempt l ast year to obtain a civil injunction to force the
group to stop growing and distributing the plants near Ivanhoe.

Vortmann was the judge in that case and ruled that Foothill Growers
violated the county ordinance. He ordered the cooperative to shut its
operation, and Foothill Growers complied.

Daleman said renting the land for growing is his sole
income.

And he's no stranger to butting heads with the county over medical
marijuana. In March 2009, he was acquitted of drug charges after being
arrested for growing marijuana at the home where he lived near Exeter.

Daleman's defense was that he was growing medical marijuana. After
winning the criminal case, he successfully sued and got a court order
requiring the county Sheriff's Department to return to him 12 pounds
of marijuana confiscated by investigators.

In his legal filing, Daleman accuses the county of going after him in
retaliation for his past wins in court.

"We are somewhat puzzled by the allegations regarding continual
harassment" as Daleman's land is one of many marijuana grow sites
inspected, and he's not the only one to get a cease-and-desist
request, said Tulare County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange.

She said she wouldn't discuss how her office will challenge Daleman's
claim in court today.

But not everyone on his side is so confident.

Snow said some of his fellow growers at Daleman's parcel have pulled
their plants - about 100 in all.