Santa Clara County OK's Medical Marijuana ID Cards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jim Lohse 408 246-0052 no e-mail PLEASE! Call me for info...

A three-fer:
-- Santa Clara County Unanimously Approves Medical Marijuana ID Cards
for Local Patients!
-- Medical Marijuana in Limbo in Mountain View -- Distribution Apparently
Not Allowed Even in Residences, developing...
-- My Comments on Why Marijuana Patients Feel Alienated and
Disenfranchised by Mayor Galiotto

1/24/06
Board of Supervisors Chambers, County of Santa Clara, 70 W. Hedding at 1st

(SAN JOSE, CA):

Hi folks from your favorite marijuana activist, Jim Lohse of the
Silicon Valley Cannabis Patient's Union.

Today around 10:30am the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisor's
unanimously approved the implementation of the Medical Marijuana ID
Card program as called for in Senate Bill 420 of 2003.

The great news is that Santa Clara County continues to prove
themselves to be the good guys in all this. The Sheriff's continue to
respect the laws. The Board upholds the laws.

While Mountain View apparently has medical marijuana in limbo, the
County Health department is expected to start selling ID cards on
March 1.

There will be three locations throughout the county, staffed on different days.

My group would like to recognize the Board of Supervisors and
Sheriff's Office for working hard to uphold the Rule of Law, unlike
the City of Mountain View.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN LIMBO IN MOUNTAIN VIEW

Why won't Mountain View even consider a medical marijuana center,
even if it were only for Mountain View residents? Even when El Camino
hospital cancer doctors recommend it in Mountain View?

GO ASK EUCLID, OHIO

According to City Attorney Martello, Mountain View is a Euclidean
type city when it determines zoning law. This is based on the 1926
City of Euclid, Ohio vs. Amber Realty Company Supreme Court opinion,
which allows cities to limit uses by zoning, for numerous reasons
including protecting residential neighborhoods from the dangers of
nearby industry.

Martello says that Mountain View has determined that it will no
longer study the marijuana zoning issue. After a year of study,
Planning never figured out what zone a dispensary might fit into.

For now, NOT EVEN RESIDENTIAL marijuana distribution is allowed,
because marijuana distribution is not approved in any zone in
Mountain View.

I have been decrying this state of things to the Mountain View City
Council, and I'll be there again tonight to speak at Public Comment
time. If anyone wants to find me there (my phone will be on silent) I
will be the guy with a new beard and a dark blue suit. I can be
reached by phone until 5:30 PM when I go into the study session.

We have a lot of problems in Mountain View and I will give a better
overview of the situation. Regarding what I say above, even the City
Council doesn't understand the state of law. Kasperzak, an attorney,
said he didn't know what the state of law was in Mountain View BEFORE
their decision. I am trying to point out the unintended consequences.

Martello's office hasn't called me back. I like the guy, but business
is business. Without hearing back to triple-confirm, I am providing
the above info as my experience to this point. I still welcome any
interaction with any Mountain View official to make things better.

Councilmember Perry didn't have time to explain himself further when
I saw him this morning by chance after the Supervisor's meeting. I
tried to explain where I was coming from. Last week Perry
emphatically told me that "We only voted to stop dispensaries!" For
now, MY QUESTION IS: "What is the definition of a dispensary? What is
the difference between a caregiver with ten patients, a caregiver
with fifty patients, and a dispensary?"

So effectively, as a new Mountain View resident, I feel unclear as to
how many patients I can caregive for from an apartment or other
private location. This situation needs clarification and I intend to
push for it.

WHY ARE PATIENTS MAD AT THE NEW MAYOR GALIOTTO?

Let me focus on our strongest opponent in Mountain View, Mayor Galiotto.

Mountain View, the City who sells Beer in the Park (Michael's at
Shoreline), still can't decide what zoning a medical marijuana
facility might fit into.

It's not retail, it's not a pharmacy, and if it were service-type
zoning, we'd still have to consider the possibility of "people with
submachine guns breaking in through the roof," according to a
planning department member.

Why would planning assume that people with submachine guns would try
to rob a dispensary? Maybe it has something to do with now-Mayor,
then Vice-Mayor's Galiotto's comments on the subject in October.

Former Lt. Galiotto didn't have much positive to say. More recently,
at the Human Relations Commission meeting, he had a great deal of
difficulty even reaching out to shake my hand, let alone listen to my
questions. When I asked to meet he said, "I don't do meetings."
That's a great policy for a newly appointed Mayor, I guess?

Galiotto stated that he's already explained himself on the issue of
medical marijuana. He claims to have mailed an explanatory statement
to people, but none of my several politically active group members
has seen it.

He refuses to even discuss the vague possibility that maybe,
possibly, there are ways to keep a dispensary from being a Stop'n'Rob.

GALIOTTO, DISPENSARIES ARE LIKE METHADONE CLINICS, BUT "I DON'T MEAN
TO MAKE A COMPARISON"

With a few days notice, I can provide transcriptions of Galiotto's
statements at Council meetings. Let me say up front that this guy has
a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, whether it's using the word
"innoculous," speaking to patients or commenting on Councilmembers
marriages that have "survived a year." Galiotto means well but seems
unconcerned and/or completely unaware of the effect of his words. He
doesn't intent to say what he says, but it get's said anyway.

WHAT DID HE SAY TO MAKE US FEEL ALIENATED? WHY TALK ABOUT METHADONE CLINICS?

After what Galiotto said at the October Council meeting, many
patients felt alienated and disenfranchised by his statements. He
seemed to assert that medpot facilities pose the same problems for
the police as methadone clinics. Apparently Mountain View had a
methadone clinic in the past and Galiotto is reminding us that there
were problems.

Galiotto then backpedaled, stating that he wasn't comparing us
(marijuana-using medical patients) to methadone clinic attendees.
That statement seems too little to late, otherwise why did he bring
it up in the first place?

It's not even a valid comparison. Based on what Galiotto said next,
he must think a dispensary must be modelled on the same lines as
Oakland, San Leandro and Hayward, where there have been robberies of
facilities that keep $50-100,000 in cash on hand alongside pounds and
pounds and pounds of pot.

I have provided much commentary to the City Councilmembers with very
few bites that actually get to the heart of the issue. While Mountain
View needs to do a survey to see what people think about parks and
police, they apparently have the inside track on knowing their
constituents don't want this.

I do have to give credit to Matt Neely and Tom Means for asking a few
good questions. Greg Perry is well intentioned, but when he floated
the proposal in the first place, then-Mayor Matt Neely jokingly
questioned whether Perry brought it up just to be voted down. It
seems that's what happened, the issue was quietly shunted off to
study session where opponent Matt Pear moved the vote to "stop
spending staff time on the issue."

BACK TO GALIOTTO AND WHAT HE SAID TO REALLY MAKE US MAD

When Galiotto was finished not comparing we marijuana patients to
recovering drug addicts, he began to read (for six minutes) from the
San Francisco Chronicle.

He read accounts of four East Bay dispensaries that have been robbed.
The harrowing narrative painted a picture of pot clubs as magnets for
violently dangerous criminal activity. Unfortunately for us, Natural
Resources, the Hayward club, and the two other clubs of the four
Galiotto mentioned are clubs we frequent for lack of a local resource.

I sent an email to the Council saying that Galiotto has told us
"Dispensaries are Heck, Patients Can Go To Heck." I never said he
intended it, but he acts as if anyone who found his words offensive
are crazy. (If we're crazy, there's sure a lot of us!)

GALIOTTO DOESN'T REALIZE HE'S TALKING ABOUT THE CLUBS WE GO TO (LACK
OF LOCAL RESOURCE)

Then Galiotto, apparently unaware that we go to these clubs, said "I
know it's a long drive" to San Francisco, Hayward and San Leandro,
but we should keep going where we're going and quit hoping for a club
in Mountain View.

A long drive? Many of our patients depend on public transport, so for
them going to San Francisco is an ordeal that takes a day. Many of
the sickest patients who are too poor to own cars are the last people
who need to brave Mission Street. It's one thing to leave a dispenary
and drive away, it's another thing to take stinky pot on the train.

Providing for a marijuana facility in Mountain View would help
provide for the safety of Mountain View residents and others in Santa
Clara County, some of the most vulnerable citizens.
--
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California NORML (415) 563-5858 // canorml [at] igc.org
2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114