California cities and counties race to ban marijuana growing

When the California Legislature passed the state's first comprehensive medical marijuana regulations in September, pot advocates hoped the move heralded a new era of trust in their often tumultuous relationship with wary local officials and police.

So far, it hasn't turned out that way.

Facing what appears to be a rapidly closing window for action, dozens of cities and counties across California are racing to enact bans on marijuana growing. Some apply only to commercial cultivation, both indoor and outdoor, but many would also prohibit personal pot gardens that have been legal — or at least overlooked — for 19 years.

"Any other industry that created four months of seasonal labor and hundreds of thousands of jobs ... we would be giving tax breaks to those businesses," said Robert Jacob, a medical marijuana dispensary owner and member of the Sebastopol City Council who has been fighting pot-growing bans proposed in Sonoma County.

At issue is a paragraph in the 70-page framework, approved in the closing hours of the legislative session, that would give the state alone authority to license growers in jurisdictions that do not have laws on the books by March 1 specifically authorizing or outlawing cultivation.

Lawmakers involved in crafting the package say the deadline ended up by mistake in the final compromise regulations. Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Democrat who represents California's prime pot-growing region, included it in earlier versions as a way to free local governments from a responsibility they might not want, his spokeswoman Liz Snow said.

more
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/1/23/california-cities-and-counties-race-to-pass-marijuana-growing-bans.html