Pubdate: Tue, 27 Nov 2012
Source: Ukiah Daily Journal, The (CA)
Copyright: 2012 The Ukiah Daily Journal
Contact: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/feedback
Website: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/581
Author: Tiffany Revelle

SHERIFF ALLMAN: MENDOCINO COUNTY POT PERMIT HOLDERS WEREN'T PROMISED 
IMMUNITY

Says Feds Will Find Nothing Amiss in County Program

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman spoke Monday about the subpoena
the county received in late October from the U.S. Attorney's Office
for records the county keeps regarding its medical marijuana ordinance.

"In the fall of 2010, I met with U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, and I
told her everything about the 9.31 process that I could: the public
hearings, the board (of supervisors) votes," Allman said. "She didn't
have any kind of concern at the time (about) the program."

While it's still not clear to him why the federal authorities want the
records, Allman noted that the county's now-canceled permitting
program for collectives to grow up to 99 medical marijuana plants
never guaranteed the applicants immunity from federal
prosecution.

"We're going to comply with the subpoena," Allman said, adding that
while he couldn't reveal what kind of records it specifies, the
subpoena covers all records pertaining to the county's medical
marijuana cultivation ordinance, County Code 9.31. "We've collected
everything and delivered it to the County Counsel's Office, and that's
where we are."

Other county officials confirmed last week that a federal grand jury
had issued the subpoena to the Mendocino County Auditor-Controller's
Office for records of funds paid to the county under its medical
marijuana ordinance, County Code 9.31.

Until March, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office issued permits
under 9.31 for collectives wanting to grow up to 99 marijuana plants,
an exemption to the county's 25-plant limit.

The county stopped issuing the permits and reverted to the 25-plant
limit for all growers after the U.S. Attorney's Office threatened to
file and injunction against the county's medical marijuana cultivation
ordinance and seek legal action against county officials who supported
it.

Under 9.31, the MCSO still sells zip ties for $25 apiece, which can be
affixed to plants to show they are grown in compliance with state law.

In 2011, the Sheriff's Office received 95 permit applications and
approved 91 of them. The permit fees started in late June of 2010, and
while the permits issued that year were fewer, Allman said the numbers
were "not a lot different." The popular permitting program garnered 10
applications and $30,000 in zip ties less than a month after the Board
of Supervisors approved the fees for it.

"As far as the Sheriff's Office is concerned, every dollar we've taken
in has a paper trail," Allman said. Receipts for the $25 zip ties and
$1,500 permit for collectives to grow up to 99 plants went to the
Auditor's Office, he said.

Collectives applying for the permit had to provide the applicants'
names, mailing address, physical address, phone numbers, driver's
license numbers and doctors' recommendations for all patients for whom
the medical marijuana was to be grown, among other information, and
had to be inspected.

"The difference between eradication and this (permitting program) was
that this allowed monthly inspection to ensure compliance with state
law, and they paid us to do it," Allman said of the now-canceled program.

Anyone who applied for the 99-plant permit also had to sign a waiver
releasing the county from liability arising from the application or
enforcement of the permit's conditions, and agreeing that the signer
understood that the permit would comply with state law and that it did
"not confer upon (the applicant) and/or managers, employees and
members of the collective immunity from prosecution under federal law."

Allman said his department has always been "transparent and clear,"
but that the recent cancellation of the permitting program and the
federal subpoena muddies the already murky waters around marijuana
law.

"This increases the gray area of medical marijuana, and the more gray
area we have, the more time it takes to investigate marijuana grows,"
Allman said. "Until we get to a point where the laws are black and
white, we're going to continue to have a lot of misunderstanding about
what the voters' intent was in the passage of Proposition 215 (the
Compassionate Use Act of 1996)."

All that said, Allman said he isn't worried about what the federal
authorities will find in Mendocino County's medical marijuana
ordinance records.

"In my heart I know they're going to find nothing wrong," he said. "I
guess they're going to have to find that out themselves."

Regarding how recent federal activity affects future regulatory
efforts for medical marijuana in Mendocino County, Allman said he
hopes something good comes of it.

"There is a haze over the 9.31 discussion," Allman said. "I welcome
it. I've been asking the U.S. Attorney's Office for four years for
more clear direction on marijuana."
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