COUNTY MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW REVISION PROPOSED

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider
eliminating the county's medical marijuana permit program in answer
to recent legal threats from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

County Counsel Jeanine Nadel is recommending the board adopt a
changed version of County Code Chapter 9.31, which currently allows
medical marijuana collectives to grow up to 99 plants per parcel if
they get a permit for an exemption to the county's 25-plant limit
from the Sheriff's Office and follow a set of rules.

Nadel is proposing to cut the ordinance's provisions that have to do
with the exemption, the permits and inspection requirements,
shrinking the 21-page document to eight pages.

"This is not telling people they can't grow marijuana, as per the
state attorney general's guidelines; it's telling local government
that we can't collect money for it," Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said.

If the board adopts the changed ordinance, it would still allow
growers to have up to 25 plants per parcel for medical use. Growers
could still voluntarily buy zip ties the Sheriff's Office sells for
$25 each to show the plants are grown in compliance with state law.

If approved, the ordinance would be back for a second reading Feb.
14, and would be effective 30 days after that.

Allman, whose department has collected about $500,000 in zip-tie and
medical marijuana permit fees, said he doesn't yet know how the
change might affect his finances.

"Through June 30, we're OK," he said.

The question that remains unanswered is how the permit program's
elimination would affect his 2012-13 budget, according to Allman. No
layoffs are planned for the near future, he noted.

The county first adopted its medical marijuana cultivation ordinance
in 2008 with a 25-plant limit, and revised it in 2010 to give the
county a code enforcement hammer for neighborhood and environmental
concerns, and to set up the 99-plant exemption and permitting process.

At least part of the reason for the sudden about-face has to do with
a legal threat from the U.S. Attorney's Office, delivered to the
county at a Jan. 3 meeting.

It's unclear how much the proposed changes have to do with the state
Supreme Court's decision earlier this week to review the Pack v. City
of Long Beach case. The court's October ruling dismantled the city's
similar permitting program on the premise that it conflicts with
federal law, which regards any marijuana use as illegal.

The court found that the city's ordinance crosses the line of
decriminalizing cultivation, use and possession of medical marijuana
under California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Requiring a permit,
according to the ruling, implies that the city is authorizing
collectives to operate.

In a Friday e-mail, 2nd District Supervisor John McCowen, who helped
rewrite 9.31 to allow the exemption and permits in 2010, notes that
the state Supreme Court "announced a couple of days ago that they
will review the Pack decision which held that local jurisdictions may
regulate, but not permit, medical marijuana," and goes on to say the
Pack case has little to do with the proposed changes.

"It may be assumed that the federal threat was consistent with the
Pack decision, but did not rely on it," he wrote. "Therefore, the
state Supreme court review of Pack does not affect changes that are
required to address the federal threat."

Nadel wrote in an agenda summary for the board that she is proposing
the changes "due to concerns expressed by federal authorities and the
recent ruling in Pack v. Superior Court (City of Long Beach)."

Nadel said last month that her office was waiting for further
developments, including an effort to take the ruling off the books as
precedent for future court decisions.