Apparently investigating pot grows is far too time consuming for San Joaquin County’s Sheriff so he’d like to ban cultivation altogether. Last week San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore proposed an ordinance that would actually prohibit card-carrying medical marijuana patients from growing their own medicine.
According to San Joaquin Sheriff’s Capt. Bruce Wuest, a member of the Sheriff’s narcotics task force, said personal cultivation has created a public safety issue, as deputies spend more time than necessary trying to determine if any marijuana found is legal or not.
“A lot of times, someone we find growing marijuana makes a medical cultivation claim, and after we investigate it turns out that (the claim) is just a cover for what they’re actually doing,” Wuest said
“It’s simple for law enforcement to investigate and mitigate when we go out to investigate. This will give law enforcement the tools we need when we go into the field,” Sheriff Moore said.
What’s worse? The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the ordinance. “Marijuana cultivation is a public nuisance issue,” Supervisor Bob Elliott said Tuesday. “This is absolutely the right action to take.”
This isn’t the first time San Joaquin County took a shot at marijuana patients. Last October, the Lodi City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting the outdoor cultivation of marijuana, and limited indoor cultivation to the residence or garage of qualified patients or caregivers.
The new prohibition, which aims at helping law enforcement while at the same time strips the rights away from marijuana patients, is scheduled to be adopted by the board at an April 14 meeting.
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