Pubdate: Fri, 02 Aug 2013
Source: Reporter, The (Vacaville, CA)
Copyright: 2013 The Reporter
Contact:  http://www.thereporter.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/472

SOLANO SUPERVISORS BACK TO SQUARE 1 ON MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

What a difference an election can make. Two years ago, when the 
Solano County Board of Supervisors adopted and later extended and 
re-extended a moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries in 
unincorporated areas, it was with the hope that court rulings and 
staff know-how would eventually make that prohibition permanent.

Sure enough, in May, the California Supreme Court ruled that cities 
and counties had the authority to decide whether dispensaries would 
be allowed in their communities. This week, staff presented an 
ordinance that would have prevented those dispensaries from being 
established in the unincorporated areas.

But now, two new supervisors have joined the board -- and they aren't 
as enthusiastic about forbidding dispensaries.

In fact, Vallejo Supervisor Erin Hannigan is decidedly in favor of 
allowing them -- a position she has held since serving on the Vallejo 
City Council and voting to allow dispensaries there.

So, instead of an outright ban, Supervisors ended up continuing the 
moratorium for another year and directing staff to come back again, 
this time with rules to regulate any dispensaries that might want to 
set up shop in the unincorporated areas.

In the 3-2 vote that gave staff new marching orders, Hannigan was 
joined by Supervisor Skip Thomson of Vacaville, who also was elected 
last November, and Board Chairwoman Linda Seifert, who two years ago 
was on the losing end of a 3-2 vote that opted to outlaw dispensaries 
rather than regulate them.

So now the board has come full circle and is right back to where it 
started in 2011, when an in-home health-care provider presented the 
board with a proposed set of regulations for a dispensary she wanted 
to open to serve some of the estimated 4,000 patients who live here.

As The Reporter Editorial Board has pointed out time and again, 
Solano County voters were among the Californians who, in 1996, 
approved Proposition 215 and legalized the medical use of marijuana. 
Patients whose doctors prescribe the drug for them are entitled under 
state law to use it, and not everyone can or wants to grow their own. 
Legitimate dispensaries are needed to serve those patients.

The problem is that not every dispensary is legitimate, and having 
too many concentrated in one area has proven problematic.

As Supervisor Hannigan noted on Tuesday, putting regulations in place 
before dispensaries are allowed to open would solve many of the 
problems that communities such as Vallejo have encountered because 
they allowed dispensaries but failed to enact rules for them.

Of course, the best solution, as always, would be for the federal 
government to take marijuana off of its list of forbidden substances 
and put it on the list of regulated drugs. Then patients could obtain 
medical marijuana from their neighborhood pharmacy, just as they do 
their other prescriptions.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom