Pompo

Measure B enforcement on hold until court rules
7/4/08|Ukiah Daily Journal| by Ben Brown - The Daily Journal

A tangle of lawsuits have brought enforcement of Measure B to a temporary halt while county law enforcement officials await court rulings.

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said the Sheriff's Office would be delaying enforcement of Measure B's new medical marijuana plant limits until Mendocino County Superior Court Judge John Behnke rules on the lawsuit filed by county residents George Hanamoto and Paula Laguna.

"County counsel asked that we hold off until the next hearing date," Allman said.

Behnke is scheduled to hear the case July 25. He dismissed Hanamoto and Laguna's first complaint on April 23, ruling that Measure B did not violate the Compassionate Use Act, which set California's state medical marijuana plant limits.

Hanamoto and Laguna have since refiled their suit based on the decision in People v. Kelly in which a California Appellate court ruled that the state medical marijuana limits set by SB 420 were unconstitutional. Measure B set the same limits.

County Counsel Jeanine Nadel said a stipulation was put in place during the first hearing of the Hanamoto and Laguna suit that, should Measure B pass, it would not be enforced until the court ruled on its constitutionality.

Nadel said if Behnke rules against Hanamoto and Laguna on July 25, the stipulation will be lifted and Measure B will be enforced.

In the meantime, the Sheriff's Office will continue to arrest people for violating the existing county law, which allow people to grow

up to 25 marijuana plants for medical use and possess up to two pounds of dried marijuana.
Those growing and selling marijuana commercially will continue to be prosecuted.

Sheriff's deputies have arrested several people on suspicion of growing and selling marijuana commercially since voters approved Measure B on June 3.

Additionally, Nadel said the county counsel's office is waiting to see if the California Attorney General's Office will be filing a petition for review in the Kelly case. A petition would bring the case for a hearing in the California Supreme Court.

Measure B, which voters passed with approximately 52 percent of the vote, repealed Measure G - the county's personal use marijuana law - and set medical marijuana plant limits at the state limits of six mature or 12 immature plants and eight ounces of dried marijuana.

Measure G, which was approved by Mendocino County voters in 2000, instructed law enforcement to make the prosecution of anyone growing 25 or fewer marijuana plants the lowest possible law enforcement priority.