cannabisnews.com: Pot ID Law Sparks Criticism





Pot ID Law Sparks Criticism
Posted by CN Staff on October 20, 2003 at 06:48:32 PT
By Brian Seals, Sentinel Staff Writer
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel 
Santa Cruz — Some medical marijuana advocates fear that a new law aimed at easing patient worries could have unintended consequences. They say it sets limits on how much marijuana a patient can possess and consequently could interfere with successful treatment.Gov. Gray Davis signed SB 420 into law last week. The law calls for a statewide voluntary identification card system and aims to make policies consistent from one county to the next. The law also states that a patient may possess six plants or eight ounces of dried pot.
Critics, though, say the need varies from patient to patient and setting a one-size-fits-all limit doesn’t address that."I think it’s a very unrealistic number of plants," said Santa Cruz attorney Ben Rice, who represents numerous medical users facing pot charges. "It maintains a foolish tension between law enforcement and patients."Valerie Corral, director of the Wo/men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, also said the law falls short. She said the limits would meet the needs of about 2 percent of WAMM’s patients, which number about 200.Advocates say the limits are faulty because a person growing outdoors, with a six-plant limit, couldn’t produce enough to meet his needs for the rest of the year, as indoor growers might be able to do.Also, the amount needed varies, advocates say.Some patients smoke the pot, others put it into food, like brownies or muffins, or make a tincture, each of which requires different quantities. Smoking usually takes lesser amounts to provide relief.Medical marijuana advocate Steph Sherer, of the Bay Area group Americans for Safe Access, said she uses about four pounds a year, well above what the law allows, to make her tincture.The bill allows for a medical necessity defense in state court, though, meaning a patient might be able to prove a larger amount is needed. But that entails having to go through the legal process to prove it."I fear a lot of patients are going to be prosecuted and have to go to court to interpret this bill," Sherer said. "That’s a long process for an ill person."In Santa Cruz County, sheriff’s deputies have looked at medical marijuana possession on a case-by-case basis, says Sheriff Mark Tracy."What we’ve tried to do is look at whether a person presented information on medical need," Tracy said.The law does allow localities to adjust limits.County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt said she would study the law and talk to the appropriate parties."I think it is quite possible we will want to do something more," Wormhoudt said.Wormhoudt was the sponsor of the county’s voluntary identification care program, which went into effect in August.The language on limits was added to the state bill late in the negotiation process. A task force of doctors, police and patients worked on the law that at one time discussed a 99-plant limit. Police groups balked at that, and the wording was changed for political compromise."Law enforcement wanted it, that’s what it came down to," said Corral, who helped work on the bill that was sponsored by state Sen. John Vansconcellos, D-Santa Clara.While the new law has sparked concern, advocates and police alike say it is a good first effort at clarifying some of the particulars of the 1996 Proposition 215 passed by state voters.It explicitly states that patients and caregivers can grow marijuana in collectives or cooperatives, and it also establishes a 24-hour hot line for police to call if they stop someone who has pot and a voluntary statewide identification card."It’s going to create safety in areas where law enforcement has been resistant," Sherer said.Tracy credited the new law for clarifying some vague aspects and for bringing the California Department of Health into the state’s policies. "Over the years, there’s been too much emphasis on law enforcement. Law enforcement shouldn’t be the regulatory agency," Tracy said.But Rice disagreed."My thinking is it would have been better had this not gone through," he said.Gov. Davis signed the bill last Monday, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Bush administration request to consider whether doctors can be punished for recommending medical marijuana. The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals had ruled doctors should be able to do so.Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)Author: Brian Seals, Sentinel Staff WriterPublished: October 20, 2003 Copyright: 2003 Santa Cruz SentinelContact: editorial santa-cruz.comWebsite: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/Related Articles & Web Site:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/Pot Bill Splits Pro-Smoking Groups http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17612.shtmlState Sets Marijuana Standardshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17583.shtmlMedical Marijuana IDs Go Statewidehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17563.shtml 
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Comment #3 posted by Mark Tide on October 20, 2003 at 09:20:52 PT:
An Emphasis on One Crucial SB420 Issue
Howdy again,One very crucial item to immediately realize (as noted in the above opinion column), is that present local implementation plans that do not have an ordinance are nullified by SB420. For example, current 99-plant, 3 pound guidelines in Humboldt, Sonoma, Mendocino and Del Norte Counties (San Francisco also falls into this general category) will all become eliminated on Jan 1. Local jurisdictions must adopt implementation ordinances to avoid the new SB420 state limits.This matter is not being reported, as of yet. Humboldt Co. press is now breaking-out this imprortant news.I'll send along relevant and useful links to FoM.Best Wishes, Mark Tide
Arcata Journal
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on October 20, 2003 at 09:17:24 PT
Mark
Thank you for the early look.
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Comment #1 posted by Mark Tide on October 20, 2003 at 09:08:32 PT:
Opinion Column on SB420
Howdy from Arcata,The following opinion column on SB420 will be published this week in several of Humboldt County's weekly newspapers, and at Arcata Journal (see link). Here's an early look for Cannabisnews.com readers.Best Wishes,
Mark TideOpinion Column :Seven long years after California voters passed P215 (1996), the State Legislature has finally adopted an initial - purported - “implementation plan” (SB420), which is an utter disaster except for one salient aspect - it officially recognizes the profound and crucial role of local governments in developing successful implementation.New statewide limits on medicinal cannabis cultivation and possession are both absurd and unworkable. Counties and cities, if they intend that their citizens be capable of realizing the goals of P215, must now adopt ordinances which will cure most of the many problems created by this new legislation.Glaring indications exist within SB420, of the pernicious and powerful influence of the state’s law-enforcement lobby. No form of plan will pass through the state capitol, without approval and political endorsement by this extremely prejudicial lobby. All along, this lobby has complained that it just can’t understand how P215 is supposed to work, but the actual problem is that it refuses to permit enactment of state / local implementation legislation that would succeed in making P215 workable.Examples of the law-enforcement lobby’s outrageous assault on proper implementation abound in this new law. “Six mature or twelve immature,” plants is a limit disallowing even the propagation of patients’ existing strains of cannabis, and also unjustifiably restricing their ability to assure healthy and vigorous plants and a successful harvest.Although P215 intends that all patients in need have “safe and affordable” access, most patients cannot cultivate for various reasons. Unless local implementation ordinances are adopted and surplus white-market cannabis is available, patients unable to cultivate will have no lawful avenue of access and will depend entirely upon the black-market for medicinal cannabis. Present district-attorney guidelines are unable to legitimate distribution, which is fully accomplished by ordinance.This new law forces legal standards into an unworkable situation, in order to raise any flimsy hope of implementation throughout much of the state, where elected officials, police and sheriffs have simply chosen to ignore / violate the plain letter of the law in P215. Prior to Ca. Supreme Court action last summer, patients were even being brazenly stripped of basic civil rights, affording proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal process.Supposedly beneficial, another clause in this new law, letting doctors modify limits for individual patients, overtly presumes docs’ (non-existent) cultivation expertise. Even if docs were to increase patients’ possession limits (up from only 8 ounces), there are no clear, usefully specifiable consequences for legally determining any related cultivation limits. So, costly litigation ensues.Dissolving discretionary guidelines established by various, county district attorneys is another of the law’s prominent features, yet receiving no attention in either legislative analysis or the press. It took our local DA about one NY minute to realize this impact of effectively eliminating his ability to continue (past Jan 1) present Humboldt County guidelines. Identical circumstances confront such policies in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties.This new law’s much-touted, state ID card program is destined to become yet another means for law-enforcement interests to diminish and erode patient rights intended by voters through the P215 Initiative. A (law-enforcement based) kind of internet-system is envisioned to eventually function to verify information related to this ID card.It’s more than obvious, that access to this internet-system will always be only a friendly, cooperating state agent away from federal authorities. So clearly, many patients are not going to apply, relying instead on their supposed rights - which are now further undermined by what will become their bottom-end of a legally tenuous, double-standard for ID in the minds of law-enforcement.Arcata’s original, patient ID card program, were it to be succcessfully proliferated state-wide, would largely resolve this element of the law. Issuance of variously termed, counterfeit-proof cards to patients, with a security system absent files of specific patient information, would immediately succeed. Instead, law-enforcement interests desire to drive a fear-based wedge among patients, and wield yet another level of adverse scrutiny toward determinations of probable cause for arrest or siezure.Yet another outstanding feature of SB420 is a stark conflict in its language regarding prohibition of any “profit,” but allowance for “reasonable cost of services.” Such a blatant clash of legislative intent is guaranteed to result in the creation of dense thickets of criminal litigation, adversely distracting from meeting the actual challenge - literally contained - in P215: Public expectation of “affordable” cannabis being accessed by patients through an “implementation plan” that effectuates opportunities for legal “distribution” to occur within a white -(rather than black)- market.SB420 does little to overtly address “distribution,” despite this being billed as its purpose (as P215 requires). Legislative recognition of permissive legal authority possessed (and in some cases, reasonably exercised) by local jurisdictions such as Arcata to enact ordinances as the best devices of implementation, is the only favorable and constructive facet of this new legal landscape.Conventional legal avenues have always been available for making white-market distribution lawful, through means of using an already existing umbrella of exceptions caveats contained in relevant state codes not explicitly addressed by P215. Adoption of local ordinances will function to satisfy these legal exceptions clauses and legitimate medicinal cannabis distribution within those jurisdictions.Attention of responsible officials should be focused on the fact that, consistent with P215, the inherent lawfulness of medicinal cannabis is not derived from any inevitably arbitrary limits, but rather from its use. P215 “does not condone diversion” of medicinal cannabis to the black-market, but that does not mean that no possibly divertable cannabis may exist, for that would unlawfully repress patients’ access guaranteed through P215.“Distribution of safe and affordable” cannabis to patients in need is actually the limited legal ambit of legislative authority on this subject, and this authority should be understood to mean simply “implementing a plan,” adopting an ordinance that establishes a confident process for the legal recognition of citizen conduct relevant to distribution.Such a legislative approach is entirely within the realm of P215, and outside federal attack. Although the State Legislature should expect that introducing arbitrary and prejudicial limitations upon portions of P215 based on initiative-derived authority will meet legal challenge, but overt federal assault specifically on P215, as has by now been proven, just isn’t in the federal deck of cards.It is this turbulent terrain that local, elected representatives are now - officially - invited by the legislature to explore. Humboldt County Supervisors should now lead the way in this adventure, once they are fully knowledgeable about the particular pathways which are truly available.
Arcata Journal
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