COUNTY POT PERMITS NOT SUSPENDED

Contrary to rumors, permits for zip ties and cooperatives for growing
medical marijuana in Mendocino County have not been suspended.

"(The program) has not been suspended," said Mendocino County Sheriff
Tom Allman, adding "but there's no movement on it in January and
February anyway."

Rumors are flying around the North Coast that the ground-breaking
cultivation permits pioneered by Allman have been called off due to
fears that a recent court case may force the county to refund hundreds
of thousands in permit fees.

Mendocino County Counsel Jeanine Nadel said today that she will have a
recommendation on what to do for the Board of Supervisors possibly by
the end of the week but had already told Allman a suspension may be
necessary. That preliminary opinion may have fueled the suspension
rumors.

However, no decision has been made, and according to Allman, it can
only be made by the supervisors themselves. The board is meeting today
in regular session but Nadel said supervisors would not be discussing
the cultivation permit issue.

Normally, the medical marijuana cultivation permit applications start
to come in March and April as the growing season gets underway. Allman
said he has no applications pending and that the 2012 applications
aren't even ready yet.

Mendocino County has an innovative medical marijuana cultivation
program which sells zip ties to individuals cultivating medical
marijuana to identify legal plants during possible law enforcement
activities.

The county also has an ordinance allowing cooperatives to grow up to
99 plants under a set of county rules. All those activities come with
fees which have helped fund the Sheriff's Department.

A recent state appellate court decision nullified a similar
cultivation program in Long Beach, Calif. saying the county had
overstepped its legal bounds since marijuana growing in any form is
still illegal under federal law. The rest of California is waiting to
see if that case is confirmed as precedent-setting by the State
Supreme Court.

Medical marijuana advocates have asked the high court to review the
case, citing what they see as the appellate court's influence in
forcing unnecessary actions by fearful counties to cancel or suspend
medical marijuana programs.