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Oakland Public Safety Committee gives cannabis tolerance a green light |
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Written by Justin Baker
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Friday, 05 August 2005 |
Measure covers private sales to adults
The City Council’s Public Safety Committee met June 14 with a packed
hall and unanimous public testimony supporting regulated cannabis sales
in Oakland.
“We truly are showing that we are a respectable,
political constituency with clout,” said Mikki Norris, a board member
of the Oakland Civil Liberties Alliance, primary sponsor of Measure Z,
which won by 65.2% last fall.
 Public Safety Hearing — Dr. Frank Lucido urged the Public Safety Committee on June 14 to activate the oversight committee and adopt a quick implementation of Measure Z. Councilmember Nancy Nadel (upper left) made the motion. Photo: Chris Conrad
Councilmember Pat Kernighan seconded Nadel’s motion,
which passed 3-0 with the vote of Jean Quan and an abstention by Larry
Reid. Kernighan, elected to the District 2 seat earlier this year in a
special election, said she had not voted for Measure Z, but she
understood it and respected the will of the voters.
Constituents crowded into the meeting with concerns
about the city attorney’s definition of what voters meant when they
made private adult cannabis sales, cultivation and use law
enforcement’s lowest priority. He interpreted it as meaning
non-commercial locations only, rather than other non-public places. The
net effect would have been to limit tolerance to the home rather than
allow clubs or designated private adult-use areas that require proof of
age to enter.
Backers of the measure argued that voters clearly
intended to keep sales “off the streets” by moving them into commercial
settings to be taxed and regulated as soon as possible.
Speakers made a strong case for ventilated, on-site
smoking areas and age controls through ID checks or membership cards.
Both of these systems have worked well in medicinal cannabis outlets.
Kernighan, herself an attorney, said that the
language must be taken at face value and that it did not appear to her
that voters intended to restrict cannabis sales, cultivation or use to
the home. Nor did she want to unduly tie the oversight group’s hands as
to what possibilities to consider.
City council members now need to designate oversight
committee members to make sure that tolerance carries forward as
intended. Each council member is to select a resident to serve for two
years while meeting quarterly.
Dr. Frank Lucido, a family practitioner, told the
committee that he had contacted more than one council member about his
interest in bringing a physician’s sensibility to the issue.
Nadel’s appointee to the oversight committee,
Richard Lee, said, “I look forward to working on the committee to
create guidelines for private adult sales. Well-regulated cannabis
sales will benefit Oakland and continue to revitalize Oaksterdam.”
Lee said that the city’s experience with regulating
its medical marijuana dispensaries gave the community transferable
skills that could apply to adult use facilities. Councilmember Quan
agreed, noting that the city’s dispensary permit ordinance seems to be
working.
A poll found that public opposition to the section
of that ordinance that shut down most of the dispensaries had
encouraged voters to pass Measure Z. Supporters see this as a signal
that voters want to revive Oaksterdam as a cannabis-friendly zone.
Chris Conrad, curator of the Hash-Marijuana-Hemp
Museum in Amsterdam, told how the Dutch model of tolerance and
coffeeshops would apply to Oakland. To protect private activities from
federal or state harassment, he said, business licenses and tax records
would not indicate whether cannabis was sold or consumed, as long as a
controlled-access private adult area had been designated and sales
taxes were paid, without listing what was being sold. Failure to keep
minors out or public nuisance complaints would be a basis to pull a
business license.
With the success of Measure Z in Oakland, other
communities are beginning to consider adopting similar ordinances. A
political consulting company, The Next Generation, has been contracted
to do early research on suitable locations around the state.
After decades of discrimination and mistreatment,
cannabis consumers are finally making their claim to equitable
treatment. For more information visit www.taxandregulate.org. |
Justin Baker |
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