[420 Girl]

Open marijuana co-ops are here to stay - and local zoning should keep up with them.

There's the law, and then there's what's happening on Main Street.

And two Shasta County supervisors couldn't seem to tell the difference Tuesday when they wondered what was so urgent about a proposed 45-day moratorium on new medical-marijuana cooperatives. The legal pause to review zoning issues related to the co-ops needed four votes to pass, but Leonard Moty and David Kehoe said they didn't see the point in responding now to a law that the voters passed more than a decade ago, so the moratorium died.

It's true that Proposition 215, legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana, passed in 1996. It was only this year, however, that the Obama administration stated it would not use federal resources to pursue anyone in compliance with the various states' medical-marijuana laws. That legal blessing led to a rush of new storefront dispensaries, in prominent locales including next door to the Cascade Theatre in Redding and on Main Street in Cottonwood. Altogether, at least a dozen brand-new dispensaries have opened this summer around the county.

But without explicit zoning rules to steer the co-ops toward suitable neighborhoods and to ensure they operate in a community-friendly way, the result is an anything-goes atmosphere.

Paradoxically, the Humboldt County city of Arcata - a spot famously tolerant of marijuana - last year passed tight zoning ordinances that govern where dispensaries can open, where and how plants can be grown, and how co-ops must be run. The rules include local oversight of operations to at least try to prevent the spread of medical marijuana into the illicit market, as well as a cap on the number of dispensaries in the city. Maybe they know something about where this is all leading.

Critics knocked the moratorium as a mere stalling tactic, but it would have made sense to stall long enough to set reasonable rules before - rather than after - the nearly inevitable public backlash.

One way or another, these shops are here to stay. And as long as they're following the law, they're welcome. That doesn't mean, however, that neighbors' quality of life should go up in smoke.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...oratorium.html