Mendocino voters repeal lenient pot policy
Mendocino County relinquished its crown as the nation’s epicenter of pot leniency Tuesday, with voters decisively approving a hotly contested measure to limit residents to six plants apiece under the state’s medicinal pot law.With 85.5 percent of precincts reporting, Measure B had already locked up an unbeatable 55.5 percent of the vote. The measure – which repealed an initiative approved by county voters eight years ago allowing residents to grow as many as 25 pot plants for personal use – needed majority approval to pass.
Other jurisdictions in the United States allow more plants, but they are generally confined to a specific space and must be used medically. Under the eight-year-old Mendocino regulations, the 25 allowable plants can grow as large and thick as possible, and be used as the owner wishes.
When the county’s regulations passed as Measure G in 2000, proponents said the rules would simply codify what had been happening for decades in the county – massive pot growth that made Mendocino part of Northern California’s renowned “Emerald Triangle.”
The generous standards made it easier for people to grow pot to be used as pain-relief medicine, advocates say. But many residents and law enforcement officials complain that the standards were abused by people growing hundreds of plants at home for commercial sale.
There’s only one problem with the passage of Measure B: it restores the limit of plants for medical users as determined by Senate Bill 420, which is six plants and eight ounces. However, that language has just been ruled unconstitutional by a California appeals court. According to attorney Omar Figueroa, there currently is no official “limit” for California medical marijuana patients; each patient’s reasonable amount of medical marijuana would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Given this development, Measure B is moot regarding medical users. Measure G had also allowed 25 plants for personal (recreational) use; that is now repealed, but it was never legally in force anyway, since both California and United States law ban the growing of cannabis for personal use.
