Pubdate: Tue, 11 Sep 2007
Source: Argus, The (Fremont, CA)
Copyright: 2007 ANG Newspapers
Contact: http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/writealetter
Website: http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1642
Author: Michael Manekin, Staff Writer
Cited: San Mateo County Board of Supervisors 
http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/smc/department/home/0,,1864_3028,00.html
Cited: San Mateo City Council 
http://www.cityofsanmateo.org/government/council.html
Cited: San Mateo County District Attorney 
http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/smc/department/da/home/0,,14094689_14099400,00.html 

Cited: Marijuana Policy Project http://www.mpp.org
Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/San+Mateo
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Proposition+215
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

SAN MATEO COUNTY MAY REGULATE POT DISPENSARIES

Some Officials Want to Protect Legal Use

Two weeks after the DEA raided three San Mateo medical marijuana 
dispensaries that the county district attorney said violated state 
law, the County Counsel's office is preparing guidelines for the 
distribution of medical marijuana.

A model ordinance which the county and cities could adopt to regulate 
the distribution of medical marijuana would be good government, said 
San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill.

"San Mateo County has always been at the forefront of attempting to 
meet the needs of its citizens, and we have a heart," Hill said. "If 
someone is suffering, then we want to prevent that. And if someone is 
suffering from a disease, and medical marijuana is their only relief, 
we want to facilitate that within the law."

That's the way San Mateo Mayor Jack Matthews feels about the matter.

A few days after the raids, Matthews proclaimed himself "absolutely 
100 percent, four-square behind the use of marijuana for medical purposes."

Matthews, along with 66 percent of San Mateo County voters, supported 
Proposition 215, the 1996 measure which legalized medical cannabis in 
California.

The federal raids left him surprised. For one thing, he was uneasy 
that four establishments -- the three that were raided and another 
that shut its doors when the DEA came to town -- had "popped up, 
seemingly overnight," he said. And he was concerned that these 
dispensaries were operating illegally.

So Matthews and City Manager Arne Croce contacted Hill to discuss a 
county ordinance reining in the dispensaries. Initially, Hill said it 
was an issue for the state to resolve, a position echoed by other supervisors.

Then, the county supervisor backtracked. Recognizing that "any chance 
in the future that the state will take up this issue was slim to 
nil," he scheduled a chat with District Attorney James Fox.

Fox, the man who called in the DEA to raid the dispensaries, has 
insisted that the issue should be solved by the state. Nonetheless, 
he agreed that regulations could be useful in the absence of state regulation.

Today, medical marijuana advocates will converge in Redwood City for 
the county's Board of Supervisors meeting to voice their support for 
local regulations.

Regulating the distribution of medical marijuana legitimizes the 
rights of patients to get their medicine, they say. Establishing 
rules for law-abiding dispensaries fosters trust among cannabis 
providers, law enforcement and the community.

"People have a right under state law to have access to this 
medicine," said Bruce Mirkin of the Washington D.C.-based Marijuana 
Policy Project. "It's better for everybody to have safe, regulated 
access, and the way to achieve that is through a reasonable set of regulations.

"We think that regulation makes a lot of sense," he explained. "As 
long as it's real regulation and not regulation designed to create so 
many obstacles that it's a ban in the form of regulation."

Regulating Marijuana

Oakland is one of 26 cities in one of the eight counties in 
California that have ordinances allowing and regulating dispensaries, 
and their regulations represent a compromise between advocates, who 
want to maximize the freedom of dispensaries to serve patients, and 
politicians, who want to balance security concerns with the needs of 
a small community that relies on medical cannabis.

There are four dispensaries in Oakland, and they have each been 
chosen by the city to operate with a one-year, renewable license. 
Under state law, the dispensaries must be non-profit or 
not-for-profit collectives or cooperatives and serve only patients 
who have been given recommendations from a doctor to treat their 
illness with marijuana.

The patients, who use medical cannabis to treat ailments ranging from 
chronic arthritis to terminal diseases such as leukemia and HIV sign 
a form which allows them to be members of the cooperative. Their 
member status entitles them to the purchase of cannabis, and their 
money goes toward operations overhead, which includes everything from 
security to rent to growing expenses. The patients may also grow 
marijuana and sell their excess to the dispensaries.

Since Oakland introduced medical cannabis regulations in 2004, "the 
dispensaries have been so problem-free and crime-free that citizens 
who aren't participating hardly even know they exist," said Barbara 
Killey, an assistant to the Oakland city administrator.

Killey, who oversees the permitting and regulation of the city's 
dispensaries, would rather the federal government legalize medical 
cannabis so that pharmacies could sell the drug.

"Since that's not really a current option, then I think dispensaries 
are the next best alternative," she said.

The collectives pay business taxes to the city, draw people to the 
community to shop and even reduce crime in their neighborhood because 
of the security they hire to protect their operation, said Killey.

Medical marijuana advocates point to the success of cities like 
Oakland when advocating regulations, but they also complain that 
regulations are sometimes overly restrictive.

The city of San Francisco has an ordinance that makes it very hard 
for new dispensaries to open, said Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe 
Access, an Oakland-based medical marijuana advocacy group. Meanwhile, 
Oakland's four-dispensary limit may create higher prices through a 
monopoly, said Mirkin of the Marijuana Policy Project.

Naturally, law enforcement in jurisdictions which have established 
regulations think otherwise. If cities and counties enact regulations 
for medical marijuana dispensaries, lawmakers must set out 
"reasonable" guidelines, said Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend.

Santa Cruz, which established its ordinance in 2005, has two 
dispensaries located in an industrial part of town, and few problems 
have been reported, Friend said.

Initially, there were fears that the dispensaries were situated too 
close to a public park, but the dispensaries "have done a pretty good 
job of policing themselves," Friend said.

The city of Santa Rosa passed an ordinance in 2005 which zoned 
dispensaries at least 500 feet away from parks or schools. The 
ordinance also limited the city to two dispensaries, and capped the 
membership at 500 people each.

Santa Rosa City Councilwoman Jane Bender said that the zoning 
restrictions protect children, and the caps ensure the city doesn't 
become a magnet for medical marijuana patients from outside the county.

Like many officials throughout the state, she worries that unethical 
doctors are providing recommendations for people who don't truly need 
medical marijuana, but she says there's nothingthey can do to control 
that aspect. In any case, putting up with the failures of the medical 
board to control "phony prescriptions" is a "trade-off" in exchange 
for not "criminalizing sick people."

"I hope that people can work this out in San Mateo so that families 
who desperately need medical marijuana can get it," she said.

Non-Profit Versus For-Profit

Medical marijuana advocates worry that sick people in San Mateo 
County will be limited in how they get their medicine under new regulations.

While cities like Oakland, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa allow 
dispensaries that serve hundreds -- even thousands of patients -- 
there is already doubt that such facilities could exist in San Mateo County.

That's because the county district attorney has a different opinion 
of state law than medical marijuana advocates. While defenders of 
medical marijuana argue that the law allows for dispensaries that 
accept money from multiple patients in exchange for cannabis, Fox 
maintains that such operations serve "customers, not patients."

Dispensaries serving hundreds of patients are hardly non-profit 
cooperatives, Fox said.

"Can you explain to me any difference between these dispensaries and 
Safeway stores?" Fox said. "These growers are making money. (They're) 
not non-profit operations."

That's the reason he called in the DEA to investigate the three 
medical marijuana dispensaries in downtown San Mateo, he said. The 
operations were not "legitimate collectives," because they were 
selling marijuana to a list of patients, Fox said.

But that's exactly what the law allows, said Matt Kumin, a San 
Francisco-based attorney who represents a number of medical marijuana 
dispensaries throughout the state, including the Patients Choice 
Resource Cooperative, one of the raided San Mateo dispensaries.

Kumin, a former president of the California Association of 
Cooperatives, argues that Fox does not have a proper understanding of 
consumer cooperatives under state law. Far from operating like 
Safeway, the dispensaries are modeled after alternative supermarkets 
and businesses like REI, the outdoor-sports equipment cooperative.

Such consumer cooperatives offer members high-quality goods at low 
cost for those who don't grow their own food or manufacture their own 
sporting goods.

"Some patients just don't have the capability to cultivate their own 
medicine," said one East Bay dispensary operator. "Maybe they're 
blind, maybe they're in a wheelchair, maybe they live in a rental 
property where they're not allowed to grow medical cannabis. Maybe 
they don't have the thousands of dollars it takes to set up a grow 
room. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for medical cannabis 
patients not to grow their own medicine."

Fearing reprisal by the federal government, which does not 
acknowledge the state's medical marijuana law, the dispensary 
operator asked to remain anonymous.

He warned that a narrow view of state law which prohibits large-scale 
cooperative dispensaries would only "force patients to find each 
other in dark alleys somewhere," leaving them without the resources 
that a cooperative can provide.

"If you want responsible, professional people to distribute the 
medicine, you have to give them a license," he said.

Drafting Fair Regulation

San Mateo's mayor agrees that patients are better served by 
cooperative or collective dispensaries which can offer medical 
cannabis in exchange for money.

Forcing patients to grow their own medicine is "a very primitive way" 
of providing medicine, he said.

"What if we decided that you could have all the aspirin you wanted as 
long as you grew the birch trees?" he said. "If we're worried that 
(marijuana) is going to be abused, then we need to have careful 
screening of the people who sell it and the people who buy it."

That's why local officials in cities like Oakland, Santa Rosa and 
other jurisdictions have approved ordinances which enable cooperative 
dispensaries to flourish. However, medical marijuana advocates warn 
that many cities pass bad regulations when they rely on law 
enforcement to write them.

"It's important that the public officials in San Mateo County hear 
from all stakeholders involved," Hermes said. "That means patients, 
potential dispensary operators -- and if you want to include the 
entire community, you'd want to also include physicians and advocates as well."

The process of drafting a model ordinance will take "months -- and 
not just a few," said County Counsel Mike Murphy. When the draft is 
completed, city and county officials will have a framework. But 
elected officials are under no obligation to adopt regulations.

Micheal Resendez, a disabled veteran who lives in San Mateo, is 
rooting for an ordinance as soon as possible.

Resendez, 35, suffered severe hemorrhaging in his brain after he fell 
out of a speeding truck during training as an Army Ranger nearly a 
decade ago. To heal, doctors prescribed him morphine, demorol, 
antidepressants and a host of other medication which he said turned 
him into "a walking zombie." When a friend turned him on to medical 
cannabis, he found that "it allowed me to have a life again."

Resendez grows his own marijuana, but he lost his ability to tend his 
garden when he injured his back several months ago. Until the 
dispensaries in San Mateo were raided, he visited them to get his medicine.

Now that he has nowhere to go in the county for a reliable source of 
medicine, he wants the county to draft regulations for dispensaries 
more than ever.

"If we voted for medical marijuana (in Proposition 215), then I think 
the county should be held responsible for regulating and maintaining 
distribution of cannabis," he said. "They're our government, they're 
the ones who we elect to work for us to make sure that the laws we 
vote for are enacted and regulated.

"These are the people we elect to take care of us. That's what we 
have government for." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake