cannabisnews.com: New State P215 Law Should Motivate City 





New State P215 Law Should Motivate City 
Posted by CN Staff on October 21, 2003 at 17:52:58 PT
By Mark Tide
Source: Arcata Journal 
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. The State Legislature should expect that introducing arbitrary and prejudicial limitations upon P215, which is based on initiative-derived authority, will meet strong legal challenge. However, 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.Complete Title: New State P215 Law Should Motivate City / County Implementation Source: Arcata Journal (US CA)Author: Mark TidePublished: October 20, 2003Copyright: 1998-2003 Arcata Journal ~ www.arcata.orgWebsite: http://www.arcata.org/Contact: http://www.arcata.org/contact.htmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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