Pubdate: Wed, 06 May 2015
Source: San Bernardino Sun (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact:  http://www.sbsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1417
Author: Ryan Hagen

CITIZENS PUSH FOR MARIJUANA POLICY CHANGE IN SAN BERNARDINO

SAN BERNARDINO - The impending deadline for a bankruptcy exit plan, 
discussions about public safety and city leaders' efforts to rally 
consensus on the future of the city haven't stopped advocates who 
think the city needs to change in another key way: allowing regulated 
medical marijuana dispensaries.

To the people behind two separate but related efforts that plan to 
begin collecting signatures in coming days, marijuana is no 
distraction or drain on the city - it's the way to solve the city's 
other problems.

"San Bernardino can be at the forefront of something, instead of 
always lagging," said proponent Karmel Roe, predicting that 
legalizations in Colorado and Washington will soon multiply. "Instead 
of cutting services, we'll generate revenue. And there are a lot of 
illegal dispensaries (where) bad things happen, but this will help 
the good dispensaries that don't have those problems."

City Attorney Gary Saenz provided an official ballot title and 
summary to Roe and her cosponsor, Frank Flores, April 29, and on 
Monday gave one to William Cioci, via City Clerk Gigi Hanna. That 
started 180-day clocks to gather the 3,674 valid signatures required 
to get a proposed initiative on the ballot, but they may not begin 
collecting signatures until they publish the notice of intention to 
circulate a petition in a local newspaper.

Roe's initiative intends to repeal the city's ban on marijuana 
dispensaries and instead regulate how and where they could be 
established. Cioci's would set up a commission tasked with writing an 
ordinance to regulate or ban medical and recreational marijuana.

For both initiatives, the date they were turned in to the city clerk 
would allow them to gather signatures on a timeline that would put 
the issue up for a public vote on the same ballot in November that 
will see citywide elections for city attorney and city clerk, among 
other elected offices.

"Both of our (proposed initiatives) could work together," Cioci said. 
"What I think is important is that this is moving forward, after it 
drifted (from officials' attention), and I don't know why it drifted."

Six months after first submitting a version of her initiative, Roe 
gave the city a proposed new framework for marijuana dispensaries for 
the third time on April 20 - 4-20, a date with significance for 
cannabis culture.

That is, if it goes into effect. As they did when Roe submitted 
earlier versions of this proposal, the city's attorneys included in 
their official summary - to be shown to anyone who wants to sign - a 
warning that it might be impossible to enforce the ordinance if passed.

"The Office of the City Attorney has reviewed the proposed ordinance 
and has found numerous spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and 
typographical errors that may render the proposed ordinance 
unenforceable," the summary concludes. "The Mayor and Common Council 
does not have the authority to amend the ordinance to make corrections."

Roe said she doesn't expect that to stop her from gathering the 
required signatures, which is set by the city charter at 30 percent 
of the votes cast in the last mayoral election.

No such warning is attached to the initiative Cioci submitted April 
23 - the birthday of his son, whom Cioci believes may not have killed 
himself if he'd had access to medical marijuana.

"He had a lot of mental health issues," Cioci said of his son, who 
died last year at the age of 22. "A lot of the medications that they 
gave to me specifically increased suicidal thoughts (in the elder 
Cioci). This is where I see cannabis as a great help in PTSD, 
depression, and these mental health issues. The pharmaceutical 
industry gives them pills that exacerbate those thoughts."

The evidence for these beliefs is something Cioci would like to 
present to the City Council, perhaps avoiding the need for an 
election, although he also intends to gather signatures as needed.

Then, an eight-member commission - paid $125 per month for a 
three-month study, after which his initiative would require it to 
become self-funded - would decide the best marijuana policy for the city.

Although the city has long had 20 or more openly operating 
dispensaries, they have been banned since 2011, and the Supreme Court 
ruled in 2013 that such bans are legal despite state law allowing them.

Saenz said in June that the city should study changes to its policy, 
because the cost and difficulty of shutting down dispensaries made 
the ban essentially "futile."

But after a City Council committee studied the issue and recommended 
the full council decide on a medical marijuana policy that could have 
included some heavily regulated dispensaries, the council decided in 
closed session that it would instead crack down on enforcing its dispensary ban.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom