Editors’ Note: For disclosure purposes, the author of this article uses medicinal marijuana to help control her son’s seizures, who has Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, which is a rare form of epilepsy.
This October, nearly two decades after California legalized medical marijuana, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a package of bills that puts more regulations into place and gives cities and counties more local control over medicinal marijuana. The Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act establishes the state’s first regulatory framework for the cultivation, production, transportation, testing, sales, and taxation of medical marijuana.
As a result, cities and counties across the state are forced to adopt ordinances that lay out their responsibilities under the new law. Truckee and Placer County are no exception, as both entities are expected to adopt ordinances early next year.
“This new structure will make sure patients have access to medical marijuana, while ensuring a robust tracking system,” Brown wrote in a signing statement Oct. 9. “This sends a clear signal to our federal counterparts that California is implementing robust controls not only on paper, but in practice.”
The new act regulates medical marijuana dispensaries, deliveries, and cultivation. It also establishes a system where the state will license certain uses, but all necessary approvals must first be obtained from the local jurisdiction. The jurisdictions have the right to allow or prohibit such uses. While the new laws will impact businesses, individual patients and their caregivers are exempt from these licensing requirements for personal medical marijuana cultivation and use.
To comply with the new laws, the Town of Truckee rushed to develop new ordinances to keep local control, but received a lot of pushback from locals when it broached the issue at the city council meeting on Nov. 10. Truckee Community Development Director John McLaughlin had recommended that the council direct staff to prohibit dispensaries, commercial cultivation, and medical marijuana delivery services within the town limits. However, after a solid showing of community support for delivery services at the meeting, the town council took no action and did not take McLaughlin’s suggestion.
“Whether or not the town decides to authorize and regulate cannabis sales and production, cannabis will be readily accessible in our town,” Truckee resident Lee Graham, who owns Tahoe Herbal Care, a marijuana delivery service, said at the meeting. “People have used, grown, and sold marijuana in this town for decades, and people will continue to do so whether or not the town decides to regulate or attempt to eradicate this market.”
LOCAL REGULATIONS
While the state is expected to start issuing licenses to medical marijuana suppliers and distributors in 2018, a March 1 deadline looms for California cities to establish laws on cultivation. According to McLaughlin, town staff will ask the town council at its Feb. 23 meeting to adopt a resolution to “continue prohibition of commercial cultivation within the Town of Truckee limits.” McLaughlin said it comes down to a land use issue and that personal grow operations would be allowed, but not grows for commercial purposes. He said commercial cultivation is currently not an allowed use in the town’s development code, and that there have been no requests for commercial grows in the town. However, if the state pushes back the March deadline, then the town will hold off on the ordinance, McLaughlin said. He noted that in 2016, the town will also consider ordinances on manufacturing, processing, and delivery, but that a “robust public process” will occur.
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“From the state level, these new bills are raising the issue that we need to look at it at a local level,” McLaughlin said, noting that the town has not formally made any policies on medical marijuana businesses until now because “it hasn’t risen up in the priorities for the town.”
In June 2005, the Town of Truckee adopted an interim ordinance to prohibit marijuana dispensaries, which expired in April 2006, and no new regulations were adopted. In January 2008, McLaughlin determined dispenseries were not allowed because there was no similar use in the town’s development code. There are currently no dispensaries in Truckee. While the town has not approved mobile dispensary services, McLaughlin said he knows of two local medical marijuana delivery services in Truckee, but that there could be more. No arrests have been made by local police for medical marijuana deliveries. McLaughlin recognizes that marijuana is part of the Truckee/North Lake Tahoe culture.
“Culturally, it is part of the community and part of our lifestyle,” he said, noting that this part of Nevada County does not have the same issues with big grows as the western part of the county. “We don’t have a big issue; it has just evolved.”
Placer County is also grappling with regulation of medical marijuana in unincorporated parts of the county, which includes North Lake Tahoe. In May, the board of supervisors considered to regulate cultivation in unincorporated parts of the county, but then decided to see what the state was going to do. At the time, board members had no interest in banning cultivation, but wanted to establish a regulatory framework to deal with concerns by residents who lived near marijuana grows. On Dec. 8, the Placer County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to look at regulating marijuana in unincorporated parts of the county and directed staff to draft a proposal by January. Supervisor Kirk Uhler was the lone dissenting vote.
“What we discussed was putting in a placeholder legislation in January that would preserve our right of jurisdiction over what happens in Placer with regards to cultivation, land use, location, manufacturing — all of the components that come with medicinal marijuana use,” said District 1 Supervisor Jack Duran. “And provide us the opportunity after January to then really put the meat on the bones in crafting an ordinance that suits our needs for passage later in the year.”
While local jurisdictions around the state look to comply with state laws, it is likely that California voters will be asked in November 2016 to consider an initiative that would approve recreational use of marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C. There are currently 10 legalization efforts underway in California, according to the International Business Times, but it is still unclear which effort will make its way onto November’s ballot. In addition to California, other states considering legalizing recreational marijuana in 2016 include Nevada, Arizona, Maine, and Massachusetts.
For Truckee’s part, the town is hoping to have regulations in place before an initiative is passed.
“It is an important issue in a lot of people’s lives,” McLaughlin said.
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LEGALIZATION MEANS BIG BUCKS
While California figures out how to legalize recreational marijuana, Colorado is racking in the big bucks from legalized pot sales. Colorado, which legalized pot in 2013, collected nearly $70 million in tax revenue from marijuana sales from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. Marijuana tax revenue outstripped alcohol taxes, which came in just under $42 million for the same time period. Some of the marijuana tax revenue is being used to increase the number of health professionals in Colorado public schools.
“The funds help fill a critical gap in Colorado school districts, which suffer from a shortage of school health workers due to 2011 budget cuts,” according to a Drug Policy Alliance report. “Many of the newly hired health workers, including nurses and social workers, will focus on mental health support and on programs to educate students about drug use.”
In Oregon, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2014 and started sales of cannabis this October, retail sales reached more than $11 million in the first week. Recreational marijuana sales are tax-free in the state until January, but will be taxed at 25 percent, which will help fund schools, mental health programs, state police, and cities and counties that are allowing recreational sales.
McLaughlin noted that tax revenue from pot sales “is a big deal” and said it is possible it could benefit Truckee in the future. But, in the meantime, the town needs to figure out its stance on cultivation, dispensaries, and delivery services. State legislators who spearheaded the effort say these regulations are needed.
“These regulations are long overdue and I’m thrilled that we were able to work together to find common ground on these historic medical marijuana regulations for our state,” Senator Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who represents the North Coast of California, where the majority of marijuana is grown in the nation, said in a statement. “The time is now.”
For more information about the Feb. 23 meeting of the Truckee Town Council, visit townoftruckee.com.
