ReeferSmoke – A Marijuana Blog

Well it looks like the Mendocino County Board of Sup’s are about to buckle under to the Fed’s. Next Tuesday the M.C.B.S. will consider getting rid of the county’s medicinal marijuana growers permit program (the 99 Program) in response to recent legal risks pointed out to them by the U.S. Federal Attorney’s Office.

County Counsel Jeanine Nadel is suggesting the board adopt a transformed version of County Code Chapter 9.31, which presently enables medicinal marijuana collectives to Cultivate 99 marijuana  plants per parcel when they obtain a permit from the Mendocinco Sheriff’s Office and follow the rules.

Nadel is suggesting to chop the ordinance’s provisions which have related to the exemption, the permits and inspection needs, diminishing the 21-page document to eight pages.

“This isn’t telling people they cannot grow marijuana, according to the condition attorney general’s recommendations it’s telling municipality that people can’t collect money for this,” Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman stated.

When the board switches into the transformed ordinance, it might still allow marijuana seed farmers to possess as much as 25 plants per parcel for medical use. Farmers could still under your own accord buy zip ties the Sheriff’s Office costs $25 each to exhibit the vegetation is grown in compliance with condition law.

If approved, the ordinance could be back for any second reading through February. 14, and could be effective thirty days next.

Allman, whose department has collected about $500,000 in zip-tie and medicinal marijuana permit costs, stated he does not yet understand how the modification might affect his finances.

The question that continues to be un-answered is when the marijuana seeds planting permit program’s elimination would affect his 2012-13 budget, based on Allman. No lay offs are planned for the long run, he noted.

The county first adopted its medicinal marijuana cultivation ordinance in 2008 having a 25-plant limit, and modified it this year to provide the county a the code enforcement department hammer for neighborhood and environment concerns, and to setup the 99-plant exemption and enabling process.

A minimum of area of the reason behind the sudden about-face has related to a legitimate threat in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, shipped towards the county in a Jan. 3 meeting.

It’s unclear just how much the suggested changes have related to the condition Supreme Court’s decision the 2009 week to examine those v. Town of Lengthy Beach situation. The court’s October ruling taken apart the city’s similar enabling program around the premise it conflicts with federal law, which regards any marijuana use as illegal.

A legal court discovered that the city’s ordinance crosses the road of decriminalizing cultivation, use and having medicinal marijuana under California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Needing a permit, based on the ruling, suggests the city is permitting marijuana collectives to use.

Inside a Friday e-mail, second District Supervisor John McCowen, who assisted rewrite 9.31 to permit the exemption and permits this year, notes the condition Top Court “introduced a few days ago that they’ll evaluate the Pack decision which held that local areas may regulate, although not permit, medicinal marijuana,Inch and continues to express those situation has little related to the suggested changes.

“It might be assumed the federal threat was in conjuction with the Pack decision, but didn’t depend onto it,Inch he authored. “Therefore, the condition Top court overview of Pack has no effect on changes which are needed to deal with the government threat.”

Nadel authored within an agenda summary for that board that they is suggesting the alterations “because of concerns expressed by federal government bodies and also the recent ruling in Pack v. Superior Court (Town of Lengthy Beach).”

Nadel stated recently that her office was awaiting further developments, including an attempt to accept ruling from the books as precedent for future court choices.