California’s Supreme Court just made the state’s already confusing marijuana laws even more so.<\/p>\n
In a ruling Thursday, the justices were unanimous that the Legislature erred in 2004 when it imposed legal limits on the amount of pot medical marijuana patients can grow or possess.<\/p>\n
Thus, they have tossed out a state law that limited medical marijuana users to 8 ounces of dried pot and six mature marijuana plants or 12 immature plants. <\/p>\n
To add to the confusion that law enforcement faces with the current marijuana laws, the justices also said that local governments can impose their own possession and grow limits on users, but those limits can’t be used to prosecute individuals in state court. <\/p>\n
Huh? <\/p>\n
Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness nicely summarized law enforcement officials’ take on the ruling: “an abundance of ambiguity.” <\/p>\n
The decision provides no comfort for parents worried about their kid’s drug use, or employers concerned about employees stoned on the job, or motorists nervous about pot-impaired fellow drivers. As McGinness noted, it appears “to invite greater acceptance and greater use of marijuana.” <\/p>\n
A second case pending before the high court challenges city and county governments’ rights to limit the number of pot dispensaries that can be allowed within their jurisdictions. <\/p>\n
If those limits fall, it’s hard to see how any community can keep the pot industry from exploding, Humboldt County-like, within its borders. <\/p>\n
No one anticipated such a fallout when voters approved the state’s medical marijuana law in 1996. <\/p>\n
Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, was billed as a way to legalize marijuana use for those suffering from cancer, glaucoma, chronic pain and other ailments. It’s done much more than that. It’s made marijuana a quasi- legal drug for anyone who wants to get high. <\/p>\n
As the California Supreme Court made clear with its most recent ruling, the voters enacted the medical marijuana law and only the voters can modify it in any substantial way. <\/p>\n
The status quo is not acceptable. At minimum, a new ballot measure is needed to regulate pot, tax it and keep it out of the hands of children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
California’s Supreme Court just made the state’s already confusing marijuana laws even more so. In a ruling Thursday, the justices were unanimous that the Legislature erred in 2004 when it imposed legal limits on the amount of pot medical marijuana patients can grow or possess. Thus, they have tossed out a state law that limited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}