The County’s Dysfunctional Medical Marijuana Ordinance Suddenly too Functional for County Board of Supervisors – Cruel Move to Further Outlaw Patient Access

March 17, 2016

Terrie Best – San Diego Americans for Safe Access

San Diego, CA – The County Board of Supervisors met yesterday and the patient community barely escaped a ban on medical cannabis. The ban would have affected unincorporated areas of the county, such as Julian, Ramona and many other rural parcels where it would otherwise be safe and advantageous to cultivate cannabis. The advantage would be a regulated and local supply of product to the growing number of licensed medical cannabis co-ops in the city of San Diego. The city is the only municipality in the county with a retail distribution ordinance on its books. But, the city’s law does not address the cultivation of cannabis at all. Many cannabis patients saw the need for cultivating a local supply of medicine and began to eye the dysfunctional county ordinance.

The county passed the onerous ordinance kicking and screaming back in 2010. So thorough were they in the quest to make it a de facto ban they’ve enjoyed almost complete non-participation ever since it passed.

When in December, the state of California passed a regulatory licensing scheme of their own, know as MMRSA, it contained a robust set of cultivation licenses. County properties which were once geographically not suitable for storefronts are now being identified as viable for cultivation under the new state law. Much to the alarm of the County Board of Supervisors, the industry of patient providers had found a way to utilize the disabled ordinance after all.

Enter the NIMBY’s of Julian and Ramona, who flooded the County Board of Supervisors with pleas for bans, moratoriums and stricter regulations to keep these new cultivation hopefuls from participating in the ordinance. It was the political cover the Supes needed and they requested staff weave more dysfunction into the six year old law.

The county had already worked hard and spent staff hours to craft an ordinance that doesn’t work for patients. They are now scrambling to plug the holes they left so that again, nobody can comply and serve ill people in the county in any way.

The moratorium the Supervisors did settle on is nothing but a 45 day mission to find ways to put a stop to safe access and kick all applicants out of the county’s current permitting process.

To write a law to regulate a formerly lawless industry was admirable. To write the law so strict that for six years only one patient organization could comply was fallacious and underhanded. To now go back, unwind the regulations and ensure that no cannabis activity can be conducted lawfully in the county is dangerous. Is the County Board of Supervisors advocating a lawless cannabis market? Do they prefer to subject neighborhoods to unregulated cannabis grows and SWAT style raids which harm families, kids and dogs? Citizens must stand up to this affront to public safety and knee- jerk reaction to reefer madness.

Please contact your San Diego County Supervisor and tell them to stop banning safety. Tell them to please allow collectives and cultivation of medical cannabis in the County of San Diego and to not make the ordinance more restrictive. Ask them to allow the applicants to go through the permitting process. We have 45 days to make a big impact and we need to act fast and act often.

Here is a map of the county with an easy address look-up tool. Please find your district marked with the big blue circled number. Then go here to find your District Supervisor, click on their name and contact them today and every day.

Here’s a list if you already know who your rep is or want to call them all!

Thank you. If you live in the unincorporated areas of the county, we need you even more! Please reach out to SDASA right away! Many thanks to all our patients for working so hard to get an ordinance in the county, let’s not let the county backslide into a ban!