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Home - San Jose Mercury News
Home - San Jose Mercury News
More pot clubs for San Jose?
City considers allowing new medical marijuana outlets while Santa Cruz draws the line at two.

Vote: Should San Jose add more clubs?

http://forums.mercurynews.com/poll/s...arijuana-clubs

A funny thing has happened since the Obama administration recently declared it would stop cracking down on medical marijuana in states that allow it, like California: While strait-laced, law-abiding San Jose is considering a pitch to attract more medical pot clubs, surf city Santa Cruz is signaling enough is enough.

That's a shift in attitudes for the Bay Area's biggest city and the college town over the hill. Suddenly, one San Jose leader sees a revenue opportunity while Santa Cruz sees too many uninvited guests.

San Jose, population 1 million, has only one medical marijuana dispensary, which opened just four months ago.

But San Jose City Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio says it's time for his city to be more welcoming toward medical pot dispensaries, and he's proposed an ordinance based on those in other Bay Area cities to regulate and tax them. A committee led by Mayor Chuck Reed today will consider scheduling a City Council vote on the proposal.

"The use of cannabis for medical purposes has gained legitimacy in our culture," Oliverio said. He added that "allowing medical use of cannabis within city borders will bring additional revenue" to a city drowning in nine straight years of red ink.

Longtime medicinal marijuana activists like Kris Hermes of Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access called it a "welcome development.

"There's been a fairly high level of frustration among patients and advocates in Santa Clara County,"
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Hermes said, noting that many patients "are forced to drive to outlying areas to get their medical marijuana."

Like Santa Cruz. And that's a problem, say city officials there who will discuss limiting pot clubs to the two that already exist in this city of 59,000. Despite the feds' willingness to look the other way, the city has little interest in becoming a medical pot magnet. A city study showed that only one-quarter of customers shopping in the two dispensaries live within Santa Cruz city limits. About half live elsewhere in Santa Cruz County, and 25 percent travel from outside county lines.

"We're interested in the city of Santa Cruz and its citizens, certainly not outside of the county," said Mike Ferry, city planner.

Santa Cruz's City Council will explore new restrictions and has already enacted a moratorium on new clubs in response to a surge of interest from entrepreneurs hoping to open them after the Obama administration's announcement. Other cities have been busy too. Last month, Los Gatos passed an emergency ordinance to temporarily ban pot clubs, heading off a request to open one there.

Two dispensaries in Santa Clara are the only others known to be operating in Santa Clara County. There are several in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley.

San Jose hasn't gone out of its way to prevent pot clubs in the past, and Oliverio isn't entertaining the idea of spreading them across the city now. He proposes restricting the cultivation and sale of medicinal marijuana to industrial areas; prohibiting on-site use; and limiting the number of dispensaries. He also calls for a $10,000 permit application fee and a 3 percent "cannabis business tax," as well as $1,000 fines for staff or patients who illegally use or sell marijuana for other than medicinal purposes.

Tax revenues would go to a special fund for police and road maintenance.

Hermes said there is "no good reason to prohibit on-site consumption" because patients benefit from interacting with each other. He also noted that the proposed tax is substantially higher than Oakland's 1.8 percent.

"In San Jose," Oliverio counters, "we care about where we put things."

Gus Donowho, manager of the San Jose Cannabis Buyers Collective that opened recently near the Valley Fair shopping mall, said the city's only current medicinal marijuana dispensary welcomes Oliverio's proposal even though it will add to its tax bill.

"What I see is legitimacy of our business," Donowho said. The collective already does not allow on-site use and has a strict, two-day verification procedure for patients, he said, and currently has 1,300 patients.

Despite voters' 1996 approval of Proposition 215 legalizing medicinal marijuana, providers have had a tough time avoiding legal troubles. Though 13 other states now have similar laws, the U.S. government has continued to treat marijuana as a narcotic, and federal drug raids have shut down many state-sanctioned dispensaries. That may change after the U.S. Attorney General's announcement last month to refocus federal agents' efforts on busting illegitimate pot clubs.

But operators have also been shut down for failure to comply with local regulations. In the late 1990s, the director of the former San Jose-based Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center, Peter Baez, was prosecuted after police alleged marijuana was sold to people without a doctor's recommendation.

Oliverio said that with the feds easing up and dispensaries opening nearby, San Jose needs to get in front of the issue before city officials "find ourselves behind the eight-ball."

[stealthviper]

In the case of Santa Cruz, the Council has voted to limit the number of dispensaries to the two existing ones, but are considering letting both of them operate growing operations in order to better comply with state law and the AG's guidelines.

This info comes from Mike Corral.

As far as a club having its own grow, I feel that is the way of the future. It would certainly eliminate the current "gray market" in meds..... A big bummer for anyone just in it for $, but a great thing for all patients interested in playing by the rules....

Peace,

'bug