Measure A’s a downer

We’re aware that medical-marijuana cultivation often has little or nothing to do with medicine. We also know that marijuana gardens can be a nuisance to neighbors, and that the number of gardens has increased exponentially in recent years. And we understand that Butte County’s medical-marijuana-cultivation ordinance is an effort to lessen the nuisance factor.

Unfortunately, however, the ordinance does not solve the fundamental problem: how to enable all qualified patients to grow their own. That’s a big reason why, following its passage on May 24, 2011, opponents quickly qualified a referendum petition and county supervisors were compelled to place Measure A on the June 5 ballot.

The ordinance’s biggest shortcoming is that it forbids cultivation on parcels smaller than a half-acre. Many if not most of the parcels in the county are a half-acre or smaller, so the ordinance excludes a lot of qualified patients. (The county’s prohibition of medical-marijuana dispensaries excludes many others from obtaining their medicine legally, notably those living in apartments or renters whose landlords forbid growing.)

Proponents of Measure A argue that “it sets up some simple rules to help people be good neighbors.” Well, maybe, but it does so by prohibiting many qualified patients from growing anything at all. The measure favors large-scale growers while forbidding the little guys from growing their six plants for personal use.

The measure has other problems. It puts a burden on the county Department of Development Services, which would be tasked with collecting the doctor’s recommendations of all the people involved in the cultivation of more than six plants. Employees would have to be trained in privacy laws under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

And it would require the county to hire additional code-enforcement officers to make sure that cultivation guidelines are being met. The Sheriff’s Office would be authorized to go on any cultivation site at any time, no warrant needed.

Taken together, these flaws in the ordinance render it defective. Voters should tell the supervisors to start over by voting NO on Measure A.