cannabisnews.com: Pot Club Seeks To Operate in San Andreas





Pot Club Seeks To Operate in San Andreas
Posted by CN Staff on September 29, 2004 at 09:22:29 PT
By Vanessa Turner
Source: Calaveras Enterprise 
Should medical marijuana dispensaries be allowed in Calaveras County? That's a question the Board of Supervisors began to tackle Monday when County Counsel Jim Jones told the board someone has applied for a business license to sell medical marijuana in San Andreas.Jones asked the board to ban such a facility until the issue could be studied further.
So the board approved a 45-day pot club ban.Board Chairman Tom Tryon asked what needs to be studied. State law allows medical-marijuana dispensaries and has constraints in place, he said."If we decide we don't want one, that would be contrary to state law," Tryon said."There may be some conflict between state and federal law," Jones said. "We haven't researched that in order to make a recommendation."California's Proposition 215, of 1996, allows patients to use medical marijuana with a physician's recommendation, county Health Officer Dr. Dean Kelaita said."The federal government still regards marijuana as a schedule one drug and therefore it's illegal," Kelaita said. "The federal government doesn't acknowledge Proposition 215."Kelaita offered this analogy, "First we OK you can drive cars (Proposition 215). Now someone wants to open up a car dealership to buy locally."The board will hold a study session and develop a proposed zoning ordinance to "analyze the compatibility of adjacent land uses, minimize future incompatibility, minimize cumulative impacts including the impact to law enforcement resources," Jones wrote in a memo to the board.Sheriff Dennis Downum said he's concerned about the facility being located in residential neighborhoods or close to any place that kids would normally congregate.Pot clubs are not listed as a permitted use in any county zone, Jones said. But it might fit in another category, like a pharmacy, he said. The Planning Department needs direction on how to handle these applications.The department received a business license application for a "medical cannabis dispensary" and came to Jones for guidance, Jones said.The application was submitted by Kim Cue owner of CC Collective of San Andreas, Downum said. No further information was provided and the application cited only a post office box."We're not taking a position on whether marijuana is good or bad," Jones said. "The purpose is how it affects this community.""I think we should say we don't want it in the county seat," Supervisor Lucy Thein said. "Take the Rocklin approach."The city of Rocklin passed an ordinance banning pot clubs, Jones said.Supervisors Tryon and Merita Callaway said they didn't want to drag the moratorium out."If it doesn't come back in 45 days, I'm going to vote for it," Callaway said.Callaway said that would hold the board's "feet to the fire" on the issue.Angels Camp this month passed an ordinance to regulate where such facilities could be located and how much marijuana they could sell.The city's ordinance also stipulated the dispending entity must be a nonprofit."As a physician, I'm not myself opposed to the medical use of marijuana automatically per se," Kelaita said.He's even prescribed it "a handful of times" as a private practice physician."I've written a few for patients with conditions that I felt warranted it," he said. "AIDS, cancer, those kinds of ailments."If someone is undergoing chemotherapy and they're suffering nausea, there have been some scientific studies that show THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, can help with that. HIV wasting syndrome n when patients lose appetite and body weight n the active ingredient has shown to help improve appetite and is an accepted treatment for HIV wasting syndrome.""I've denied hundreds of requests," Kelaita added. "I set a pretty high bar.""It's not an uncommon thing to have someone ask for that if they don't have a legitimate reason," he said.The closest marijuana dispensaries are in the Sacramento area and Oakland, Kelaita said.The way it works is patients get permission from a physician, a nonprofit organization sets up a dispensary for marijuana, patients bring in their recommendations and the doctor is usually called to verify its authenticity, and the patient is given a card to can use to buy marijuana at that dispensary, he said.Calaveras County is still a pretty conservative area as far as local doctors prescribing marijuana, Kelaita said.Source: Calaveras Enterprise (CA)Author: Vanessa TurnerPublished: September 28, 2004Copyright: 2004 Calaveras EnterpriseContact: editor calaverasenterprise.comWebsite: http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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