SUPES SET TO ACT ON GALLEGOS' POT GUIDELINES

New medical marijuana guidelines for the county could soon be in place if
the Board of Supervisors takes action Tuesday on a proposal brought by
Supervisor Roger Rodoni.

If supporters get their way, the new ordinance would set in stone the
guidelines established by District Attorney Paul Gallegos. Or it could
create new, more restrictive guidelines.

The DA's office announced last year that it would not prosecute medical
marijuana cases if the amounts were below a certain threshold: 99 plants,
provided they fit into a 100 square foot area, yielding about 3 pounds of
processed pot.

One problem, medical pot advocates say, is the Gallegos guidelines only go
so far.

"That doesn't mean the police can't come into your house and take you away.
That just means that Paul won't prosecute anybody," said Jason Fishbain of
McKinleyville, a medical marijuana patient and local coordinator for the
activist group Safe Access Now.

The proposed ordinance would direct sheriff's deputies to make arrests
based on Gallegos' guidelines -- or whatever limits the board sets.

The push for a local law also comes from SB 420, a new state law intended
to clarify the uncertainties of Proposition 215, the medical marijuana
initiative passed by voters in 1996. SB 420 establishes a statewide
voluntary ID card system to protect patients and their caregivers from
arrest for possession, cultivation and transportation of medical pot.

The problem with SB 420 is that its guidelines for the amount of pot
patients can have are significantly lower than Gallegos': only six mature
or 12 immature plants, plus a half-pound of processed weed. But the state
law says that local jurisdictions can set higher or lower limits.

Sheriff Gary Philp said he was meeting with other local law enforcement
officials this week to get their input on Rodoni's proposal. He said he's
concerned that a county law will not impact other police agencies; a
medical marijuana patient could be arrested in Fortuna for an amount of pot
that would not get him arrested in unincorporated parts of the county, for
instance.

"That's what I'd like to see us avoid," Philp said. "I wanted to see if
perhaps I could speak to everybody and get something that everybody was
going to agree to."

And there may be another hitch in the state legislation: Late last month,
the state Department of Health Services, which was charged with
implementing SB 420, said it did not have the money to issue the
identification cards.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, who authored the bill, said Tuesday that he
is talking with state officials to come up with a solution. "My impression
is that they are not unsympathetic," he said. "I'm cautiously optimistic."