The Board of Supervisors of Nevada County, California is having their voting meeting as I write this on a proposed ordinance produciing more restrictions on marijuana growers and patients.
The ordinance is at:
http://yubanet.com/...
The courthouse is jammed and there is overflow into the parking lot, there have been many town hall meetings around the county and the ordinance was created by the county sheriff. There had been a study group/task force setup to put together the ordinance and the sheriff scrapped a lot of what came out of the group and added some very restrictive measures.
I am an advocate for medicinal marijuana and California did vote yea on it awhile ago. There have been issues, especially in suburban type neighborhoods where the growers have not been good neighbors or good stewards. There does need to be clear and concise regulations, but I fear what is in this ordinance goes over the top.
Of major concern is the registration of patients to the sheriff's office, no other person taking medications(other than parolees) has to register to police authorities. The state of California has already said it is unconstituttional to force patients to register. Some of the other new restrictions will make it impossible for many patient growers to continue growing for their own use, and the new costs will jack up pricing from the commercial growers.
Of personal concern, our county has faired a little better than others around us because of the medical(and illegal) marijuana industry, second only to the northern Cailornia region, with conservative estimates of $200,000,000 pumped into the county last year. These new regulations with greatly impact our local economy and that will hurt all of us here.
Other financial troubles will await us through the legal system because some of these regulations may be against state law and potentially unconstitutional. I have also heard about other lawsuits within the state that should probably be resolved before our county moves forward. I am perplexed on why now, and why the sheriff nixed the study and put forward something else.
I will stay on awhile to hopefully put forth what the board decides, they are still taking comments until 5:45pm.
I wrote this diary because I believe our county is experiencing the future concerning this issue.