Oct 15, 2009
Bonnie Dumanis, California, Proposition 215, Red Bluff, San Diego
Despite the success experienced by dozens of California cities and counties regulating -- and in one case, even taxing -- medical marijuana sales, some municipalities have seen fit to shutter all open access to patients. In San Diego, where local voters approved the state's medical marijuana initiative 13 years ago, the county district attorney continues to assert that it's illegal to dispense medical marijuana to patients whose physicians have approved its use. Despite repeated losses in court and overwhelming opposition to medical marijuana raids, District Attorney Dumanis has vowed to continue her pogrom against San Diego's sick.
On the other end of the state, the small town of Red Bluff may be taking it upon itself to re-write California's voter-approved medical marijuana law altogether. The city's planning commission voted 3-2 on Tuesday to support of an ordinance which would not only ban storefront medical marijuana dispensing collectives but also prohibit all medical marijuana cultivation. Apparently, the news that California laws specifically allow cultivation by patients and their caregivers hasn't reached Red Bluff in all these years. Nor have the loads of case law supporting these rights been taken into account when the majority of commission cast its vote to thwart state law.
The Red Bluff City Council should reject this offensive proposal but if they don't, I'm confident that it will be overturned in court. Further, public officials like D.A. Dumanis and the three Red Bluff planning commissioners who openly defy the will of their state's voters and its legislature should find another line of work.