The revisions to Ordinance 9.31, passed by the Board of Supervisors on March 23, 2010, expanded a 7 page ordinance to 21 pages, making an already unconstitutional law worse by extending its application from individual patients to "collective cooperative cultivation" a punitive "Public Nuisance" foundation of its regulatory system.

The county's apparent intent by using a nuisance approach, rather than a land use basis like Arcata's ordinance, is to adopt a regulatory system that reduces patients' constitutional rights by putting enforcement under administrative law rather than criminal law by applying civil penalties rather than criminal charges.

MMMAB is strongly opposed to this over-reaching unconstitutional ordinance being applied to "collectives and cooperatives" with a punitive nuisance foundation beneath the 23 required hoops to jump through--"a trickbag of gotchas"--assuring very few will qualify for the 99-plant carrot.

Nuisance abatement, conducted under Administrative Law, breeds an atmosphere of fear.

Under Administrative Law, law enforcement may show up to "inspect" at any time without a warrant. Draconian fees, fines, penalties are imposed without so much as a finding of wrongdoing. Law enforcement initiates an abatement order and makes the call on their terms despite lacking the authority and training in nuisance abatement to do so. Why is law enforcement in charge of civil nuisance abatement as well as criminal arrests?

Supervisor John McCowen's punishment plan is to reduce patients' constitutional rights and access to medicine as part of a regulatory package, like a plea bargain, where you give up certain things of value-- right to a jury trial, right to a warrant requirement for deputies to enter private property, etc., -- and the government gains greater control over patient associations in the regulatory future.

According to Pebbles Trippet, Secretary of MMMAB, "it is morally repugnant for cannabis patients' collective gardens to be categorized as 'public nuisances', comparable to litter, garbage and stream pollution -- a sub-class of people with built-in reduced constitutional rights -- and it is illegal to create a means to discriminate against patients in the absence of criminal charges & felony penalties."

9.31 undermines the rights of patients to collectively cultivate under state law and it undermines the right of association under the US Constitution.

A group of stakeholder plaintiffs are litigating against the county in an action filed in Superior Court (9/11/09). This case, known as Hill v Mendocino County, is slowly working its way through the legal system. Read the Hill v Mendocino County amended complaint.