[420 Girl]

Mendocino County Supervisors propose to further regulate collectives and cooperatives as “public nuisances” under an administrative law (MCC9.31) that already limits patients to 25 plants per parcel, rather than on objective land use impacts under zoning laws that balance environmental and neighborhood concerns with patients’ rights. The nuisance framework is punitive and gives patients second-class status for purposes of regulation. Patients have fewer constitutional protections under administrative law than under criminal law.

The proposed changes are vehemently opposed by the Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory Board (MMMAB). The question remains, how to regulate cannabis collectives and cooperatives without discriminating against patients or putting them at a disadvantage in court.

Patients have fewer constitutional protections under administrative law than under criminal law.

Patients can lose their right to a jury trial, the protection of warrants required for law enforcement to enter property, the need for corroborating evidence beyond a single deputy’s say-so, and the right to dispute accusations before being found guilty of a violation such as aroma, ‘excess’ quantity, broken gate lock or fence-hole. In the proposed revisions anyone who wishes to challenge an abatement order must pay a non-refundable fee of $1140 within ten days to gain the right to appeal.

Under this law the nuisance abatement process is centered in the sheriff’s office, which can initiate an action against a patient at will. This increases law enforcement’s role in regulating medical marijuana rather than shifting it away as voters intended — as a health issue, not a crime.

The ordinance is being challenged in Hill v Mendocino County by patient taxpayers on constitutional grounds. A hearing is scheduled for May 14 in Superior Court, detailing 9.31’s multiple violations of patients’ rights and state law.

Jim and Trelanie Hill and Andrea and Marta Nagy are co-plaintiffs; Edie Lerman and J. David Nick are their attorneys.

An Appeals Court is expected to rule in a similar case April 20, Qualified Patients Assn. v City of Anaheim, challenging a ban on dispensing collectives that was issued under a city nuisance ordinance. Whatever that outcome, it will likely be appealed to the State Supreme Court.

It is hoped that the Anaheim decision will stop the neo-prohibition nuisance strategy of labeling patient-growers ‘public nuisances,’ a special category of people with reduced rights, who are assessed fines and fees. Anaheim will serve as a precedent in Hill, since the rights of collectives are at the heart of the patient challenge to county ordinance 9.31.

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