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| Law Library Weighs in on Medical Marijuana |
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Posted by CN Staff on August 18, 2006 at 07:00:51 PT By Terri Morgan, Sentinel Correspondent Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel 
Santa Cruz -- County residents who have a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana for medical purposes can legally possess up to 3 pounds of marijuana buds and have a 10-foot by 10-foot area of marijuana plants under cultivation.That's according to attorney Ben Rice, who said Santa Cruz County has some of the most liberal medical marijuana regulations in the nation at an informational talk sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Law Library. The session, which also featured Allen Hopper, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Drug Reform Project, was designed to clear up confusion about the ever-changing regulations on the herb. "This area has so much gray area, and it is evolving all the time so there's some confusion," said Rice, who has defended dozens of medical marijuana patients who have been arrested. Although marijuana use and cultivation is illegal under federal law, it has been permitted in California since 1996, when voters passed the Compassionate Use Act. The law calls for patients with a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana in medical treatment to be exempt from criminal penalties. Santa Cruz County, like all counties in the state, is required to issue identification cards to residents who have obtained a medical marijuana recommendation. Rice explained that patients don't have to have a county card to be protected. However, the card allows them to enjoy added protection from arrest or citations. Each county can enact its own guidelines regarding how much medical marijuana patients can legally possess. However, federal law supersedes local regulations, Rice said. "No matter what kind of recommendation you have, or what kind of illness you have, you're not protected if the federal government comes after you," said Rice. "But we all know that the federal government does not have the resources, or the will, to bust people who are taking care of their recommendation." Head librarian Dolores Wiemers said she asked a library intern to put a collection of marijuana legal resources together after receiving numerous requests from patrons for information on medical marijuana. Rice helped advise the intern, then volunteered to present the talk as a free public service to draw attention to the law library, which is located in the basement of the County Government Center. County Sheriff Steve Robbins, who noted that his predecessor Sheriff Mark Tracy helped get the county's medical marijuana ordinance passed, said in an interview before the talk the issue is a medical one, not a law enforcement issue. "People talk about the war on drugs, but we're not in a war," Robbins said. "People have a right to their medicine." Deputies don't seize medical marijuana if they can verify people's medical status, he added. Deputies will, however, look into neighborhood complaints about pot growers, largely because growers have been the target of robberies. "Our main focus is methamphetamine," Robbins said. "Marijuana hasn't been our focus, except in the large-scale commercial grows" guarded by armed gunmen. Santa Cruz County residents have long had a liberal attitude toward medical marijuana. In 2002, after federal agents raided a medical marijuana garden of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana and arrested the organization's founders, city officials allowed WAMM to distribute medical marijuana to patients from the steps of City Hall. Currently, there are two medical marijuana dispensaries operating in Santa Cruz. Voters in the city will also be asked to decide whether or not police should make enforcing marijuana laws a low priority when they go to the polls this fall. Although there was no charge to attend, organizers had requested participants make a donation to benefit the Law Library, and WAMM. Rice offered Groucho Marx masks to people who contributed money. He said the give-away was a bit of black humor, because federal law trumps California's more liberal laws about medical marijuana. "Nobody wants to be seen walking out of a medical marijuana talk by law enforcement," he said, referring to federal agents. Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA) Related Articles & Web Sites: ACLU Drug Law Reform Project WAMM Raided By DEA SC Citizens for Sensible Marijuana Policy Santa Cruz MJ Measure Could Face Challenges Initiative To Relax Pot Rules Headed To Ballot Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #20 posted by FoM on August 19, 2006 at 11:46:18 PT |
| I'm sure it could be kept for a long time and it would be still good but what I meant is can a person legally store that much and not get in trouble or do would they have to be worried? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #19 posted by whig on August 19, 2006 at 11:36:46 PT |
| I would think for long term storage you could vacuum seal small portions and store them in a cool dark place. It might still degrade a little but probably slowly enough that it is still very usable for a year. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #18 posted by FoM on August 19, 2006 at 11:02:17 PT |
| I just realized that would be over a pound a month. If a husband and a wife had a medical marijuana card could they double the size of the garden? Do they expect a person to just throw out any excess? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #17 posted by FoM on August 19, 2006 at 10:59:04 PT |
| Max said 6 plants of Sativa that grew very large could yield 18 lbs. Since it is a one time harvest can a person store 18 lbs to go for a full year? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #16 posted by charmed quark on August 19, 2006 at 10:35:09 PT |
| Truth - 100 square feet seems reasonable for 6 plants. Thats over 16 square feet per plant. While a 4 foot by 4 foot space might be a little small for some really huge plants, most will easily fit into that space. You could easily have a 6-7 foot high plant that's a little less than 4 feet wide. I know a lot of growers thin the side growth a little anyway to encourage air flow and refocus growth into flowers. I imagagine you could easily exceed the 8 oz dried limit with 6 such plants. The real problem isn't the 100 sq foot limit but the SB 420 limit on 6 plants and 8 ozs. That's probably fine for most patients, but I've talked to a few who need several grams of high quality flowers a day. 8 Oz is only about 200 grams. If you need 2 grams a day, thats over 700 grams a year. Can one achieve 700 grams in one outdoor grow of 6 female plants? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #15 posted by Max Flowers on August 19, 2006 at 10:27:54 PT |
| Have you tried cannabisculture.com? Lots of opinions there... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #14 posted by Max Flowers on August 19, 2006 at 10:26:07 PT |
| 12 imature or 6 mature plants (as a maximum) is a common misinterpretation of the law. That is the minimum under state law, in other words, no one can make you have less than that number. If you put the work and time into it, you can make six big plants yield as much as 50 in the same space, but it's tricky. You have to be really good at the gardening, because it involves keeping the plants healthy in the vegetative phase for a much longer time. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #13 posted by rchandar on August 19, 2006 at 07:52:06 PT:
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| ...anyone know of a good cannabis website in Canada? I'd love to talk with anyone from there, and am considering immigration there. --rchandar [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #12 posted by Truth on August 19, 2006 at 07:45:43 PT |
| Yes, six mature plants. SB 420 doesn't give the right to counties to say "bonzai". A mature plant is one that is allowed to grow to it's normal adult size. SB 420 does allow a county to up the amounts, but not lower it. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #11 posted by Richard Zuckerman on August 19, 2006 at 06:23:31 PT:
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| Ooops! The William Shatner roast might be tomorrow night at 10 P.M.? [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #10 posted by Richard Zuckerman on August 19, 2006 at 06:18:02 PT:
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| Tune in to Comedy Channel tonight at 10 P.M. for the roast of William Shatner. Tape it if you can. A recent article from either Rutgers Law Journal or Rutgers Journal of Law and Public Policy (???) has an article about the prisons getting rid of their law books to cut costs since the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lewis v. Casey (1996) holding a law library is not required if legal counsel is available, overruling Bounds v. Smith. The law review article title has "Fahrenheit 451 on Cell Block D" in it. Has anybody out there noticed your county courthouse or prison law library dwindling in size? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #9 posted by charmed quark on August 19, 2006 at 05:41:58 PT |
| Unfortunately, the state proposition 215 did not give any information about setting up distribution, limits on amounts, etc. Outgoing Governor Davis signed senate bill 420 that set up rules and clarified 215. Originally it was quite generous. But the AG got the language changed to allow only 8 oz of dried material and 12 imature or 6 mature plants. For reasons I am unsure of, several counties and localities believe that 420 allows them to set higher limits if they want to. I really don't know if this is the case. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #8 posted by Sinsemilla Jones on August 19, 2006 at 02:12:38 PT |
| or will they use that high tech pacing like they use at auto accidents?
[ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by Max Flowers on August 19, 2006 at 01:19:30 PT |
| A pure sativa can reach 20 feet tall in its native area (e.g. Asia, South America). Pure indicas tend to top out at about six to eight feet in theirs (Afghanistan, China), but average more like four to five feet usually. A 10-foot tall, heavy-yielding hybrid (of indica and sativa) grown outdoors under good conditions could easily yield three pounds. I've seen several six-foot indicas in the past that yielded more than a pound each. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by FoM on August 18, 2006 at 18:25:17 PT |
| That's tall! How many ounces could a 10 foot plant yield? Is there an average? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by Truth on August 18, 2006 at 17:38:32 PT |
| on how long it has to grow. If it's started early indoors then moved out 10 to 12 feet is not uncommon. Even a seed planted in May can achieve 10 feet in a prime growing condition. The strain will make a difference too. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by FoM on August 18, 2006 at 17:23:10 PT |
| How tall could a plant grow? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Truth on August 18, 2006 at 17:20:42 PT |
| On this part. "However, on another level, I wholeheartedly agree that ideally there should be practically no limits set upon cultivating cannabis." My worry is that someone might top their plants to keep them shorter, under a fence top maybe. A plant, when topped, can easily grow five or six feet wide. Six plants, five feet wide could cause trouble with the 100 ft minimun, but it fits into the state minimum. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by laduncon on August 18, 2006 at 14:39:35 PT |
| Santa Cruz has among the most liberal guidelines in California for medical cannabis patients. As I understand it, spelling out that a patient may possess 3 pounds of cannabis goes well beyond the rather paltry 8 ounce state-wide minimum provided under SB420. Also, SB420 guarantees a 6 plant minimum and Santa Cruz does not infringe upon that arbitrary number. Rather, it sets the plant limit as however many one can fit into 100 square feet. 100 square feet of growing space should be ample room to meet a single patient's medical need for cannabis (probably some exceptions), and 6 or more plants yielding a total of 3 pounds could certainly be grown within that space (let alone 8 ounces). Author leaves to medicate... However, on another level, I wholeheartedly agree that ideally there should be practically no limits set upon cultivating cannabis. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by Truth on August 18, 2006 at 08:42:03 PT |
| State law supercedes. State law says the minimum a county can allow is 6 mature plants. It also says a county can't reduce the amount. It doesn't say a county can limit the space size that they grow in. Six full size plants can easily excede 100 sq. ft. Does the county have a legal right to tell one that their six plants have to be forced into a smaller area then they want to grow? Does state law give counties the right to tell one that they have to bonzai their medicine? Someone's rewriting state law without the right to do so. [ Post Comment ] |
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