My Day on Capitol Hill

…or Watching Sausage Get Made

The day started early for me. I’m not likely to be up at 5:30 am, but for this I was willing to make an exception.

The Senate Public Safety committee was holding a public meeting on AB 1300 and I intended to make my voice heard.

AB 1300’s purported purpose is to define zoning requirements for dispensaries, but it gives broad powers to local government to restrict the location or ban dispensaries altogether.

I was on the road by 7:00am, fully fueled for the 100 mile journey to our State’s capitol.

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 9:30 am, and although AB 1300 was #20 on the agenda, I wanted to make sure I was there when the doors opened. Thanks to OnStar,

I arrived with time to spare.

Lanny Swerdlow of the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project (MAPP), a leading local activist in the medical marijuana movement, was one of the first to arrive. We were soon joined by Nate Bradley of Lawmen Protecting Patients, Lanette Davies of Crusaders for Patients Rights, and Don Duncan of Americans for Safe Access (ASA). Together we made our way to the fourth floor of the Capitol Building to slay the dragon.

I’d never been in the Capitol Building before and I was really impressed with the beautiful architectural details. The rotunda alone is worth the trip. Clearly this was built in our glory days, before our budget shrank like Alice in Wonderland.

The doors opened shortly after 9:30 and we all filed into the hearing room. Our group took the seats right behind the first row which is reserved for the legislators who sponsored the various bills being heard by the committee. We had to wait for the proceeding to start because there weren’t enough members present to make a quorum.

Let me just say, it’s not easy being a lawmaker. Bill after bill was presented to the committee, and even the most reasonable sounding measures had plenty of dissent.

One measure was to limit the scope of DUI checkpoints so that if a person did not look or act impaired, the officer must allow the motorist to proceed. Sounds logical, but arguments came from all sides – the ACLU, MADD, Police Officer’s Association, and various citizens. Clearly, finding common ground can be tricky at best.

The meeting was only scheduled to last for two hours, ending at 11:30 am. By noon, we had only reached item 14 on the agenda and it looked like the bill would get shelved for another day. Luckily the Chair, Senator Loni Hancock, rescheduled the rest of measures to be heard at 2:00 pm in another room down the hall.

We broke for lunch at a nearby bistro and discussed our priorities for medical marijuana reform. While our objectives were similar, our ideas for achieving them ran the gamut. Some favored voting for any initiative no matter how flawed (like Prop 19) to move the issue forward. Some wanted to hold Obama accountable for his major flip-flop on MMJ, while others gave him a pass, fearing the alternative would be worse. The idea of re-registering as Independents or joining the Green Party was very popular with many of the activists. After a spirited conversation, we filed back to the Capitol Building to search for the hearing room.

The new room was much smaller and quite a bit warmer than the last. It was hard to stay awake after eating lunch, but I managed. As bill after bill was debated, I noticed a common thread emerging in the arguments – the need for statewide uniformity of the law.

Finally, at 4:00 PM, SB 1300 was called.

Assemblyman Robert Blumenfield read the contents of the bill from the podium and added his recommendation for approval of the measure.

The Chair asked for comments from those in favor and many local politicos expressed their support for the bill as written.

Then we got our turn. Lanny was first to the guest speaker’s desk where he read a one page statement to the committee. He noted that the law as written would open the door to even more expensive litigation, rather than stop the current lawsuits from making their way through the court system. Next, Don Duncan expressed Americans for Safe Access support for local regulations, but opposed this bill because it would restrict access for thousands of MMJ patients across the state.

I got to express my opposition to the word “establish” in the bill (as in local governments shall have the authority to “regulate the location operation, or establishment of a cooperative or collective”). I work primarily with senior citizens who are just learning of the helpful benefits of MMJ. Many have to travel unreasonable distances to obtain their medicine because so many cities and counties have banned dispensaries in their hometowns. Uniformity of the law doesn’t seem to apply in this instance.

Senator Loni Hancock told the assembled group the experience of her own mother, who found great relief from the side effects of chemotherapy with marijuana. She expressed her belief that since Prop 215 was a voter initiative, it could not be amended without a vote of the people. None the less, the committee voted to send it on to the Senate for a full vote with the recommendation that the language be more specific.

We got the opportunity to talk with Assemblyman Blumenfield and his staff in the hall after the proceeding. I pointed out that many cities were already banning dispensaries and some would use the authority to “establish” storefront operations as an excuse to close many other shops. And while I agreed that regulation of medical marijuana dispensaries was way overdue, allowing cities to ban them created a hardship for thousands of patients. He agreed to review the language and to possibly amend the bill.

With that, our group went their separate ways to await the next challenge. Whether our efforts will have any effect remains to be seen.