The Down-Low On The Get-High From An Old Hand On Medical Cannabis (Part 1)

[User]

I’ve been reading with great interest the ongoing conundrum regarding medical cannabis access in Arcata and the greater Humboldt County area. I humbly submit my observations to you, in the hope that it may provide an experienced and alternative perspective for your consideration, as the City struggles to facilitate a meaningful implementation model that protects both qualified individuals and the community at large.

The greatest obstacle to achieving a meaningful implementation model in Arcata is ignorance of the facts on the ground. Each “side” of this equation sees through filters that need to be explored, if you are to reach understanding of the middle ground here. There are many assumptions that are being acted on without verification of their accuracy. I will attempt to clarify them for you here, according to my understanding of the issues.

Dispensaries

Contrary to popular belief, the dispensation of medical cannabis through a retail model is NOT protected under state laws. For years now, such dispensaries have operated in a “quasi-legal” or “grey market,” where certain communities tolerate or license and tax them, while others seek to ban them or regulate them out of existence.

California laws do protect certain classes of qualified individuals by offering them Qualified Immunity from prosecution under California statutes. These are Patients, Primary caregivers and their lawful assistants. Also, legitimate garden collectives and cooperatives are allowed under state laws. However, a dispensary may not act as a primary caregiver. Likewise, garden collectives should not sell cannabis, as the medicine they grow is shared amongst the members. They can pay salaries to the members who grow, and they can contribute their time, money and skills toward the cultivation of their cannabis. They do not need a “middle man,” in the form of a retail dispensary, to achieve their legitimate and lawful goals.

Cooperatives are a good replacement for retail dispensaries. Unfortunately, hardly any actually exist at this point in time. A legitimate cooperative must operate as a not-for-profit consumer cooperative, under the California Corporations Code. Such a cooperative may network its membership with one another, linking patients to primary caregivers or garden collectives. Cooperatives need not sell cannabis either. Rather, they can provide genuine network services, so that all of their members have direct access. Even if they do dispense cannabis, they must ensure that all such medicine comes from legitimate medical gardens and goes directly to their members.

Most dispensaries do not meet these criteria. Instead, they purchase cannabis from ANY source (mostly black market) and they re-sell it to qualified patients for a profit. They do nothing to ensure the legality of their sources or the quality of their products, nor do they provide consistency in strains or affordability of access to their patients. In short, retail dispensaries are NOT the solution to the problem of direct access. They are an obstacle to that goal.

Grow Houses

Contrary to local custom and belief, the legality of a cannabis garden has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it’s grown indoors, outside or in a greenhouse.

The attempts of your Planning Commission to legislate on this issue are quite beyond the scope of their actual authority. For example, an owner of a house can convert it to any use, so long as it doesn’t create blight or safety issues for the neighborhood. While many such commissions (and their counterparts in homeowner associations) can harass homeowners for anything from fences that are too tall, to the color paint one uses on the exterior of one’s home, telling a qualified patient that they cannot grow their own cannabis in their own home would be tantamount to violating both the rights of homeowners or renters and the rights of patients, and would be easy grounds for a class action lawsuit.

It would be far more productive for your city to attempt to separate legitimate gardens from those that seek to take advantage of patients by utilizing their paper-work without actually taking care of their medical needs. Also, any indoor garden should have to abide by local fire and building codes (in regards to safety and structural integrity), to ensure the safety of the neighborhood and to protect the home from damages.

These are the legitimate issues for your Planning Commission to address, not whether or not people may grow cannabis in their own homes. The idea that police are helpless and unable to investigate the legitimacy of a grow house is absurd. They manage to harass legitimate patients all the time (especially those on fixed incomes). Your local drug task force is more than capable of investigating any grow-house. And your district attorney would prosecute them if the police investigation shows fraud being perpetrated against the patients.

The problems here are two-fold. First, the drug task-forces are more interested in money and assets than in protecting the public… so if a grow house or dispensary manages to “contribute” enough money to the right people or charities, their garden will be left alone.

This obviously leaves the door wide open for large-scale marijuana production, regardless of whether or not it’s a legitimate cannabis garden. Second, when police do “investigate” a cannabis garden, they almost never bother to confirm the information posted, placing even the most legitimate medical garden at risk while complicating the District Attorney’s job immensely.

In other words, if the only cases law enforcement brings to the D.A. for prosecution are legitimate gardens, or at least questionable, the D.A. is forced to not bring charges (since they have a burden of proof to maintain). Likewise, if the police don’t even arrest the actual criminals, the D.A. has no recourse to pursue them either.

Your biggest problem here is that the law enforcement community and the large-scale criminal organizations are actually on the same side (the side with the money), while we legitimate medical patients and you innocent neighbors are caught in the middle. In the U.S.A., if you are accused of a crime, you need at least $5000 to $10,000 in order to “prove” your innocence.

So, in cannabis cases, only well off patients and criminals with a lot of money can buy their innocence, while most real patients cannot afford a proper defense. The whole system stinks, and the medical cannabis issue brings this to light.

Jason Browne, expert witness and Puffologist Emeritus, was part of Arcata’s first medical cannabis dispensary, the Humboldt Cannabis Center. He now lives in Red Bluff. Next week: landlords, the “legitimacy” of patients, local guidelines and the neighbors’ petition to the City Council.


News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: Arcata Eye
Copyright: 2008 Arcata Eye
Contact: Arcata Eye
Website: Arcata Eye