The Humboldt County Planning Commission embarked on its journey to review the latest proposed medical marijuana ordinance recently with a marathon meeting that saw dozens of public comments. The county is hustling to push through the ordinance, which dictates which land use zones will be allowed to host marijuana grows. Looming overhead is a March 1, 2016 deadline put into place by the package of statewide medical marijuana bills passed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October. While many of the details of how the state will regulate the marijuana industry weren't developed as of the Oct. 5 meeting, the bills allow counties to develop permitting procedures as long as they are at least as stringent as the (mostly yet-to-be-determined) state standards. The catch, the county says, is that local regulations must be in place by March 1 or "the state will be the sole licensing authority." (Assemblyman Jim Wood opposed that deadline, and his staff says removing it is a "top priority" when the Legislature reconvenes in January. [continues 1229 words]
Chico's City Council Needs to Prepare for Recreational Marijuana Numerous initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana in California are now ready for their proponents to begin gathering signatures, signaling the start of a race to make it on the 2016 general election ballot. If what's happened in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington is any indication of where the Golden State is headed, we expect to see a proliferation of pot shops opening up around the state come January 2017. The writing is on the wall, as evidenced by the trio of medical-marijuana-related bills recently signed by Gov. Brown. They call for, among other things, a framework for regulating a cash crop that has been caught up in the morass created back in the '90s with the passage of Proposition 215, the state's so-called Compassionate Use Act of 1996 (see Associate Editor Meredith J. Cooper's report on page 8). Prop. 215 was designed to give those with medical issues a legal defense for using the schedule 1 drug, but the nebulous law has been most successful at enriching the black market. [continues 449 words]
Economic circumstances often feed opioid abuse on the street, writes Jordan Westfall. In Ontario, someone dies of an opioid overdose every 14 hours. Most of them are related to prescription opioids, which are often prescribed for chronic pain. With a reported 50 per cent of chronic pain patients facing wait times of six months or more to see a qualified specialist, prescribed opioids fill a health care gap. Maybe this gap is the issue, and not the prescription that doctors are using to fill it. [continues 589 words]
Mendocino County has begun its review of the existing local 9.31 Medical Marijuana Cultivation Regulation Ordinance in light of the recent medical marijuana regulatory package signed into law in October that will now require state oversight of the entire industry. The new medical marijuana regulations take effect the first of the year, but local municipalities face a March 1, 2016 deadline to put in place regulations to preserve local control. Otherwise, the state will take jurisdiction in regulating that area. [continues 1005 words]
This week we won't start off with a particular reader's question as we usually do. In the past several weeks, we've received a few inquiries about the same topic: What recourse is there if someone's home grow smells up the neighborhood or condo building to the point it becomes a nuisance to others? There's a flip-side to that, too. What can home growers do to avoid such a hassle? Judging just from the Highly Informed inbox, the smell of flowering cannabis may be more noticeable lately, but only slightly. Maybe the recent spate of inquiries have come because Alaska Permanent Fund dividends just dropped, but maybe there are simply more brand-new or beginning home gardeners out there since legalization day. Most of the questions arose from apartment building conflicts, but someone in Anchorage even forwarded a message thread from the Rogers Park community message board in which a few neighbors were discussing what to do about a strong, skunky aroma on one particular street in the neighborhood's northern section. [continues 1345 words]
Monday's long-awaited announcement that billionaire angel investor Sean Parker is backing a marijuana legalization effort was welcome news. It was also doubly misleading. First, as of press time, Parker is not backing the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), the legalization initiative unveiled this week by an environmental attorney and the former head of the California Medical Association. Despite headlines to the contrary in the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, and elsewhere, Parker isn't putting money behind AUMA - at least not yet. [continues 823 words]
Former State Public Health Official Will Head Ballot Effort Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom Says Measure Is in Line With His Views Doctors' Group Backs Legalization; Will Evaluate Measure Donald Lyman, a retired physician and former board member at the California Medical Association, said Monday he will lead a well-funded statewide effort to legalize recreational marijuana next year. Lyman, of Sacramento, is the chief proponent for the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, the long-awaited legalization measure introduced Monday that's expected to receive funding from former Facebook president Sean Parker and be guided by veteran Democratic political consultant Gale Kaufman. [continues 855 words]
A closer look at the economic forces driving ResponsibleOhio's controversial plan to establish 10 wholesale marijuana growers in the state-and some of the plan's potential consequences Ohioans have heard a whole lot about pot this year. In August, ResponsibleOhio gathered enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the fall ballot that would legalize both medical and recreational marijuana use. The ResponsibleOhio plan-also known as Issue 3-began attracting controversy long before the coming Nov. 3 vote, sparking heated debate over issues that typically surround marijuana legalization, including how it would impact public health and safety and concern over easier access for minors. But the section of ResponsibleOhio's proposed amendment that's attracted the most controversy centers not on how marijuana would be consumed, but how it would be grown. [continues 1156 words]
Former Facebook President Plans to Spend Millions on Legalization Effort. SACRAMENTO - A coalition that includes former Facebook President Sean Parker on Monday proposed an initiative that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in California and place a 15% tax on retail sales of the drug. Parker, a billionaire who also co-founded the file-sharing service Napster, plans to put millions of dollars behind the proposal, intended for the November 2016 ballot, according to those in the coalition. "It's very encouraging to see a vibrant community of activists ... coming together around a sensible reform-based measure that protects children, gives law enforcement additional resources and establishes a strong regulatory framework for responsible adult use of marijuana - - one that will yield economic benefits for all Californians," Parker said in a statement. [continues 256 words]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The push to put California among the states where marijuana can be sold to and legally used by adults for recreation took a major step forward on Monday as ballot language backed by Napster co-founder Sean Parker, other wealthy entrepreneurs who support pot legalization and leading advocacy groups was filed with the state. The proposed legalization initiative is one of more than a dozen that has been submitted in California for the November 2016 election. Because of the deep pockets, political connections and professional credibility of its supporters, however, observers think the so-called Adult Use of Marijuana Act is the vehicle with the greatest chance of success. [continues 324 words]
Boulder Weekly brings you this report in partnership with Rocky Mountain PBS I-News. Learn more at rmpbs.org/news. According to a 2013 study published in the Journal of Toxicology, up to 69.5 percent of the pesticides on a marijuana bud can transfer into the smoker's lungs. Jeffrey Raber, who directed the study and owns a cannabis-testing lab in California, said the risks to consumers and workers are clear. "It's easy to understand that these compounds are toxic. We've studied that ad nauseum," he said. "That's why regulations exist for every other item we consume." [continues 481 words]
Locals React to California's New Medical Marijuana Rules With a motion of his wrist, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law this month a broad set of regulations designed to rein in the state's massive, unruly medical marijuana industry. The regulations have been 20 years in the making, since California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996 with the Compassionate Use Act, better known as Proposition 215. That act led to a fragmented and complicated set of local rules, uncertainties for regulators and law enforcers, continuing interference from the federal government, and a green rush in our own Emerald Triangle that has fragmented timber lands, damaged watersheds and built an important, albeit shadowy, economic driver for Humboldt County. [continues 3032 words]
Mendocino County, along with other California counties and cities, has a lot to consider when it comes to the new Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act recently signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown. The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors heard a presentation from Rural County Representatives of California Senior Legislative Advocate Paul Smith Monday night, in which Smith laid out what the county needs to begin thinking about at a local level prior to the new medical marijuana regulations, set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2016. [continues 1006 words]
As the state moves toward taxing marijuana growers for the first time, those same growers also are starting to face restrictions on water use, just like farmers of more conventional crops. One reason is that the water consumption of pot farms has caused serious depredations of salmon and trout runs in several Northern California streams, most notably the Eel River and its tributary streams in the so-called "Emerald Triangle" of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties. Marijuana has long been the largest cash crop in that region. [continues 627 words]
In Colorado and other states where recreational or medical pot is legal, there is a tremendous amount of money riding these days on healthy cannabis crops. But unlike, say, a corn farmer, growers in the legal-marijuana industry don't have a clear understanding yet of which pesticides and fungicides are safe to use for workers or consumers. Though the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates pesticide use on other crops, it has not tested any for use on marijuana because the plant remains illegal at the federal level. [continues 510 words]
Now that the state legislature has passed new laws around the cultivation of medical marijuana, the real work must begin. There is time before the new rules which will need to be created by legislation go into effect for local communities to decide on how they want the new laws to be carried out in their counties. Under the law, counties can have their own regulations or allow the state's regs to take effect in their counties. We have been hearing for years about marijuana, "Well, just tax it and regulate it." [continues 532 words]
Cultivators Pull Back Products Voluntarily Over Possible Residue. Two Denver marijuana cultivation facilities voluntarily recalled a wide-ranging group of products Wednesday over concerns they contained residues of pesticides that have not been approved for use on marijuana. The recall by TruCannabis and Colorado Care Facility, a subsidiary, was the third announced by the Denver Department of Environmental Health since it began cracking down on pesticides last spring, quarantining 100,000 plants. Company officials said they were conducting tests at the city's request related to an earlier recall of infused products produced by Mahatma when they found their own products had three disallowed pesticides. [continues 517 words]
Just weeks after the board of supervisors agreed to craft an outdoor medical marijuana cultivation ordinance, county staff has released a detailed draft ordinance that would create a strict permitting plan for the county's cannabis cultivators. It's a remarkably fast turnaround for a staff that shared concerns that it wouldn't be able to get regulations on the books by next year. But the draft has raised concerns from the county supervisors tasked with bringing an ordinance to fruition. [continues 538 words]
As the state moves toward taxing marijuana growers for the first time, those same growers also are starting to face restrictions on water use, just like farmers of more conventional crops. One reason is that the water consumption of pot farms has caused serious depredations of salmon and trout runs in several Northern California streams, most notably the Eel River and its tributary streams in the so called "Emerald Triangle" of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties. Marijuana has long been the largest cash crop in that region. [continues 637 words]
Humboldt County has released the first draft of an ordinance seeking to regulate commercial cultivation of medical marijuana, and it's already raising some eyebrows among Humboldt County officials. "It looks quite a bit different from what we saw going into staff," Humboldt County 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell said. "We have gotten feedback already." Rather than focusing solely on large scale cultivation, the ordinance sets permitting regulations on both indoor and outdoor grows as well as other businesses like nurseries. It also seeks to comply with recently passed state regulations on the medical marijuana industry. [continues 1080 words]
