PD Editorial: McGuire tries to clear smoke from pot law

As a Sonoma County supervisor, Mike McGuire gained a reputation for finding common ground among rival stakeholders.

He’s putting those skills to the test in Sacramento with a medical marijuana bill.

It’s been two decades since California became the first state to legalize marijuana as medicine, and an Oakland-based cannabis investment and research firm reports that pot is a $1.3 billion a year business in the Golden State.

Yet state and local policymakers still haven’t settled on an approach that ensures access to cancer patients and other medicinal users, addresses concerns about public safety and environmental degradation and withstands judicial scrutiny. Marijuana regulation is one big cloud of smoke, and it will get even hazier if a widely anticipated initiative to allow recreational use qualifies for the 2016 ballot and is approved.

California, as Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said recently, has “the worst of all worlds.”

Enter McGuire, a first-term state senator from Healdsburg who introduced legislation that would regulate medicinal marijuana from seed to sale.

“There are so many regulations governing agriculture in this state, but one of our top crops has been left out, and that’s marijuana,” said McGuire, who asserts that 60 percent of the marijuana grown in the United States comes from his North Coast district.

SB 643 would create a Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation to license and regulate dispensaries, cultivation, transportation and manufacturers of marijuana-related products. The state also would have oversight for advertising by physicians offering marijuana recommendations, supervise quality-assurance testing for edibles and ensure that licensed growers comply with environmental laws.

McGuire’s bill also would bar marijuana cultivation in residentially zoned areas and authorize counties to impose taxes for growing or selling marijuana. Cities and counties would retain the ability to prohibit dispensaries altogether.

The bill, which has cleared two committees, offers the comprehensive regulatory framework that has been lacking since Proposition 215 passed in 1996. Some aspects need fine-tuning, including the structure of local taxes. As presently conceived, much of the revenue could be chewed up by special administrative procedures that would have to be created by the state Board of Equalization. There also are two competing proposals in the state Assembly, including one favored by marijuana interests that would place regulatory authority for this “medicinal” product with the agency that supervises liquor stores and nightclubs.

One issue these bills can’t resolve is the conflict between state and federal law, which prohibits any use of marijuana - medicinal or recreational. But it’s past time for California to provide clarity for growers, users and communities.

McGuire knows that his district benefits economically but suffers environmentally as rogue growers commandeer public and private land, block streams, clear-cut trees and misuse chemicals. Meanwhile, communities statewide must cope with violent home invasions and other public safety concerns, such as keeping children from obtaining marijuana and distinguishing between black-market operations and legitimate providers.

These issues will only get more troublesome if voters approve recreational use.

Clearing the haze won’t be easy, as evidenced by years of failed attempts by other legislators. But maybe McGuire can persuade the competing interests to work out their differences over a glass of his district’s other trademark agricultural product.