BOARD VOTES TO KEEP POT LAW AS IS

Mired in Differences Amid Federal, State, Local Laws, Little Choice
Was Available

Kern County supervisors on Tuesday struggled to find a clear path for
themselves out of the legal morass that is medical marijuana in California.

The problem is there is no path.

So all five supervisors voted to stay put -- leaving county
ordinances exactly as they are.

And that means a de-facto ban on medical marijuana dispensaries
remains in place.

Federal law says growing, selling and using marijuana is illegal.

State law allows people to use it as medicine.

Kern County has an ordinance that allows six dispensaries in the
county. But all of those shops closed voluntarily in the wake of
federal drugs raids.

Patients without access to their marijuana flooded Tuesday's meeting,
calling for a safe place to buy their medicine.

"Get dispensaries back online in compliance with state law," said Tom
Beavers. "You may have closed six dispensaries but you've opened up a
thousand dispensaries on the street."

But supervisors struggled with how they could reopen dispensaries
without exposing county residents to drug raids and arrests.

"I think it's important that we retain some sort of ordinance," said
Supervisor Mike Maggard. "There are folks who have come to rely on
this for their therapeutic care. We're going to come up with an
imperfect solution and disappoint some people, maybe almost everybody."

Doug McAfee, president of the Bakersfield NORML, pro-legalization
group, called for the board to move control of county ordinances to
the Department of Public Health.

Sheriff Donny Youngblood, who currently regulates medical marijuana
dispensaries in Kern County, feels federal law should trump state law.

"Until Congress changes the law, or the Supreme Court changes the
law, I think we're obligated to follow the law," Youngblood said. "I
just think we need to say 'no' to dispensaries in Kern County,
because it is the law of the land."

The comment raised a wave of jeers from patients in the audience.

But the core of Tuesday's discussion centered around what the county
should do to regulate medical marijuana.

Supervisor Ray Watson laid out the situation clearly.

He asked County Counsel Bernard Barmann if moving control of county
dispensary ordinances to the health department would prevent federal
drug raids.

"Absolutely not," Barmann said.

Could the county prevent raids by putting more regulations on
dispensaries, Watson asked.

"Not necessarily," Barmann said. "The feds are controlling this and
local government and even state government is at the mercy of the feds."

Supervisor Michael Rubio said anything the county does will provide
medical marijuana patients with a "false veil of security" that they
are safe from federal raids.

And he was not willing to offer that false sense of security.

"The debate, I argue, does not belong in this chamber," Rubio said.
"The debate belongs at the federal level."

His fellow supervisors agreed, and voted to leave the ordinance as it stands.

Medical marijuana supporters said that while the decision wasn't
good, it could have been worse.

Dispensary licenses expire in December, McAfee said, and that may be
a better time for patients to approach supervisors on the issue again.

"We have three months now to work with local government," he said.