Page One

The Community Health Commission on Thursday sent a medical marijuana ordinance, which has been bouncing around city offices for the last 18 months, to the City Council. 

The commission and 50 audience members, almost entirely medical marijuana supporters, listened to presentations from the City Attorney’s Office, the police department, the director of public health and a variety of advocates before voting to recommend the council adopt the ordinance. 

The ordinance would establish the numbers of plants a qualified patient can grow and the amount of dried marijuana any one patient can have in his or her possession for personal use. The commission was also trying to determine how many plants could be grown by Berkeley’s marijuana collectives.  

The collectives are groups of people who assist one another with the cultivation of medical marijuana. They come together to share growing costs, gardening tips and in some cases people join because they’ve become too ill to take care of a crop on their own. 

The commission sent the recommendation to the City Council last October only to have it returned to them by City Manager Weldon Rucker. According to Commission Chair, Mark Chekal-Bain, Rucker wanted the commission to consider additional reports from the City Attorney’s Office, the director of public health and law enforcement. 

Rucker returned the ordinance to the commission requesting that it reduce the number of plants one person could grow indoors to 10. The commission had originally proposed 144 plants for a patient who grows them indoors and 60 plants for one who grows them outdoors. Rucker also wanted the commission to reduce the amount of dried marijuana a qualified patient could have on hand to 2.5 pounds from 6 pounds.  

The commission, however, decided to keep its original recommendation. 

Advocates argued that while 144 plants sounds like a lot, not all the plants grown are usable. Only the female plants flower – that’s where medical marijuana comes from – according to a report written by Chris Conrad, a court-qualified cannabis expert. The marijuana yield of a garden can depend on a variety of things including interrupted electricity, theft, pest infestations and fungus invasions. 

Police department representative Lt. Russell Lopes said the reason for requesting reduced numbers of plants was one of safety. He told the council that the police department supports the ordinance and that he, as a cancer patient, especially supports anything that will help ease symptoms of life-threatening disease. 

But Lopes said the police department is worried about personal growers cultivating large numbers of plants because of the threat of home robberies. 

“There were six home-invasion robberies last year directly related to residents who had large amounts of marijuana in the house,” Lopes said. “While we support a medical marijuana ordinance, we see an inherent risk in allowing large amounts to be grown in the home.” 

Lopes said security worries were also an issue with the collectives which could theoretically have more than 1,000 plants growing in one location. 

Dun Duncan, who runs the Berkeley Patient Group, said that most patients who are growing their own marijuana are discreet and the home invasion robberies Lopes referred to involved drug dealers who made no secret of having large quantities of marijuana. 

Attorney Robert Raich of the American Civil Liberties Union, said there was another type of home invasion the ordinance should stop. “The kind of home invasion where thugs carrying guns and badges burst in and hold you hostage in your own home and then take your personal possessions.” 

After the meeting Lopes said Raich’s comments were uncalled for. “The comments were totally inappropriate in what had been a peaceful, supportive meeting,” he said. “But it’s not surprising considering the source.” 

While the commission stuck to its original proposal for the number of plants that could be cultivated and the amount of dried marijuana that could be kept on hand, it could not come to an agreement about the maximum number of plants that a collective would be able to grow. It left that determination up to the council. 

“I feel very good about the ordinance,” said Chekal-Bain. “I wish we could have come to an agreement about the collectives, but I have full faith in the council. We’ve been working on this for a year and a half. It’s time to move it forward.” 

The ordinance has not yet been placed on the City Council agenda.