Pubdate: Wed, 20 Jan 2016
Source: Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, CA)
Copyright: 2016 Appeal-Democrat
Contact: 
https://appeal-democrat-dot-com.bloxcms-ny1.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/
Website: http://www.appeal-democrat.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1343
Author: Mickey Martin
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n027/a03.html

JAN 13 'OUR VIEW'

In regards to your editorial piece titled "Our Views: Voters will do 
more than consider the wording of initiatives" published Jan. 13 by 
your Editorial Board. I believe you seem to give the indignant Yuba 
County Board of Supervisors a free pass on the matters raised. The 
board's actions, or lack thereof, certainly created frustration and 
outrage with members of the community.

Your attempt to brand the entire medical cannabis community as being 
represented by the few outspoken and passionate advocates who 
expressed their concerns at the board meeting is misleading, and does 
a disservice to your readership.

By dismissing the rights of medical cannabis patients and providers 
as "yellers and finger-waggers" whom your readership should not "fall 
into step with," you have chosen to dismiss thousands of constituents 
whose rights are being infringed upon, and whose medical needs have 
been repeatedly dismissed by the Board of Supervisors.

I am a proponent of the ordinance that the board chose to put on the 
June election. Our organization, the Committee for Safe Patient 
Access to Regulated Cannabis (CSPARC) will indeed be holding a series 
of town hall meetings at the Yuba County Library, with the first one 
Jan. 27 at 6:30 p.m. We will be working to foster understanding in 
the community and hope to present the facts in a "polite, logical, 
passionate, yet reasonable" manner. We hope you will join us.

The county has before them two well-written and tightly regulated 
models on the June ballot. One allows for dispensaries to be made 
available so patients can have local access to it in a safe, clean, 
and well-lit facility; and the other is a cultivation ordinance that 
mirrors the current ordinance, allowing for reasonable outdoor 
cultivation limits with registration and fees for those who choose to 
grow their own. Both efforts are sound and responsible approaches to 
realizing access in the county, nearly 20 years after Californians 
voted to allow it.

I hope you will do a better job of covering the issue between now and 
election day. I would hope also that moving forward you could find a 
more objective opinion to put forth rather that choosing to focus on 
the sensationalism of the frustrations of a community largely ignored 
by their elected officials.

Mickey Martin

Author, Medical Marijuana 101

Proponent, Patients Access to Regulated Cannabis Act (PARMCA)

Martinez
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom