MEDICAL MARIJUANA ADVOCATES SEEKING SIGNATURES TO OVERTURN POT DISPENSARY BAN

Medical marijuana advocates are gathering signatures against the
county's dispensary ordinance, which they say outlaws dispensaries
and safe access.

"We're not going to put up with the way they're handling this," said
Andrew Merkel, a dispensary operator.

The referendum, if certified with enough signatures, would go to the
Board of Supervisors for their decision on whether to repeal the
ordinance or put it on the June ballot, Merkel said.

Supervisors voted unanimously Oct. 25 to ban dispensaries in all
unincorporated areas of the county.

Signature gatherers and advocates started circulating the petitions
Sunday and have tables at Chico State University and near businesses
throughout the county, Merkel said. They have already gathered
thousands, he said.

Referendum supporters have 30 days from the supervisors' vote to turn
in 7,605 registered Butte County voters' signatures in support of the
referendum, said Candace Grubbs, registrar of voters. Because that
lands on the Friday after Thanksgiving, they likely have to give the
signatures to the clerk of the board by Nov. 23, a Wednesday.

Grubbs and county elections staff will review the signatures and send
them back to the supervisors for their decision, she said. If the
board lets the voters decide, it would go on the June ballot with the
referendum on residential grows.

Medical marijuana advocates collected enough signatures to halt the
residential ordinance passed May 24. The ordinance prohibits
cultivating the drug on plots of land smaller than a half-acre in
unincorporated areas of the county.

Andrew Merkel spearheaded both referendums. He is the vice president
of the last dispensary in Butte County to stop dispensing marijuana,
North Valley Holistic Health. Operators stopped cultivating and
dispensing in October and laid off all of their employees. Merkel is
also the president of Citizens for Compassionate Use Butte County.

Merkel said state law requires that local officials facilitate access
to medical marijuana.

"They don't have the power to change the law," Merkel said. "That's
what this ordinance does."

Butte County counsel Bruce Alpert said because the zoning code does
not allow dispensaries, the use is prohibited.

"We're still not going to allow dispensaries to operate with or
without the ordinance," Alpert said.

Though the decision whether to allow dispensaries in Butte County is
in the hands of the Board of Supervisors, Alpert said it's against federal law.

Merkel thinks medical marijuana patients should be able to get the
drug because their doctor recommends it. He thinks safe access is an
important part of that.

"How are patients going to get their medicine if they can't grow it?"
Merkel asked.

He has had patients come into the dispensary crying because they have
no other safe way to get the drug, Merkel said. Growing marijuana takes skill.

"Most of them can't grow for themselves," he said.