[420 Girl]

Tehama County supervisors are expected to revisit a controversial medical marijuana ordinance before the growing season ends this fall.

"We're still working on it," Supervisor Bob Williams said last week. A revamped ordinance that limits the size and location of medical marijuana gardens will probably go before the Board of Supervisors late this month or in early October, he said.

"We have at least two more meetings and then we'll finalize it," said Williams, who with Supervisor Gregg Avilla was named to an ad hoc, or temporary, committee to refine the proposal.

In July, the board failed to pass a law that would have capped at 30 the number of plants allowed at one location; prohibited gardens closer than 1,000 feet to churches, schools, day care centers and similar facilities; required fencing and security around gardens; and mandated registration with the county Health Services Agency.

Gardens in violation would be declared public nuisances, making owners responsible for the cost of removing the plants.

"We've made some changes and some additions and that's what we're going to propose to the board," said Williams, who submitted the original ordinance modeled after one in Mendocino County. He declined to be specific, except to say drafts of the registration form and a landowner letter acknowledging the garden's existence will be included.

"What we'll end up with will be a good ordinance," he said.

When Williams introduced the proposal, spurred by citizen uproar over a garden near a school bus stop in the Gerber area, some complained it was being rushed through.

Williams said he and Avilla have since met with Sheriff Clay Parker and District Attorney Gregg Cohen. Parker said in a recent interview that while he initially opposed the process, he can now support the ordinance.

"I think that it was done too quickly," Parker said. "Now that it has had time to be looked at a little more, I do not have any opposition to it being enacted."

Jason Browne, a Tehama County cannabis patient and longtime advocate for others like him, said he's disappointed that meetings to work on the measure haven't been more inclusive.

"Instead they've formed a committee of two," he said. "They stand to lose nothing by having a proper committee or even a task force."

With its references to violence that surrounds illegal marijuana growing, he also believes the ordinance unduly stigmatizes cannabis patients.

"They're lumping us in the same category as the criminal market and they shouldn't do that," he said. "They're basically saying that we as patients are a public nuisance."

Opponents also took issue with fencing and security rules and assertions that lighting for indoor gardens posed special fire hazards.

While pot cultivation is forbidden under federal law, California first legalized medical marijuana for qualified patients in 1996 under Proposition 215. In 2004, Senate Bill 420 established statewide guidelines that allow patients up to six mature or 12 immature plants and up to 1/2 pound of dried, processed pot.

"I've been dealing with this for 14 years," said Parker, noting that the county has adopted the state limits by resolution. He said his office has worked with "dozens" of medicinal pot growers in explaining the guidelines.

Most are legitimate patients, he said. But he has no tolerance for people who cultivate pot for a profit.

For his part, Browne thinks it all comes down to recognizing both public safety and patients' rights.

"Those two things are not mutually exclusive," he said.

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