Changes planned in El Dorado County Medical Marijuana Ordinance

Submitted by paula on Mon, 09/25/2017 - 10:32pm
Event Date: 
October 12, 2017 - 3:00pm

The Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee for El Dorado County will meet again on Thursday, October 12 in Placerville to discuss proposed ordinance changes to both the cannabis cultivation ordinance and code compliance ordinance that will create a civil enforcement process for marijuana cultivation.

Supervisors Sue Novasel and Michael Ranalli were appointed to the ad hoc committee in March 2016 and have been meeting with stakeholders since then as well as looking at what similar counties are doing in their communities. The Medical
Marijuana Advisory Committee had been tasked with collecting information on different medical marijuana topics such as cultivation, dispensaries and compliance.

The goal of changes to the ordinance is to ensure those who follow the County’s cultivation rules could safely use their medicine and the individuals not following the County’s cultivation rules would be brought into compliance. The committee and stakeholders had agreed that the first step in providing a safe environment for medical users of marijuana and their neighbors was to create an effective enforcement process.

El Dorado County was the only one the group researched that had the Sheriff's Department with primary responsibility of enforcement so their recommendation is to move enforcement to a civil process through code enforcement, hire more staff and have clear and published rules.

These were presented during the January 10 BOS meeting where they gave conceptual approval for the ordinance changes after receiving the recommendations from the Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee. Since January, County staff has been working on the proposed ordinances with the help of other counties that have already created civil enforcement processes.

The Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee meeting will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Board of Supervisors Meeting Room at 330 Fair Lane, Placerville.

Novasel said the County will next be dealing with Proposition 64 before the end of the year and coming up with an Adult Use Marijuana ordinance.