Will California voters end feds' war on pot?

Those involved in law enforcement in the Yuba-Sutter region had a less-than-mellow perspective on proposed ballot initiatives that would legalize marijuana in the state, while those already involved with medical marijuana inhaled the idea with fervor.

With three initiatives collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot in 2010, the state's reputation as a bellwether state on issues could be put to the test again on whether pot should be legal.

The disparity that already exists in California over marijuana law led Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams to take a dim view of the proposed initiative.

"It so muddies the water for a law enforcement officer who's trying to do the best he can to uphold the law," Adams said. "There's got to be a better way."

Adams described a hypothetical example of a police officer who busts someone for possession and takes their marijuana, then discovers the person had a medical marijuana card. The officer would be in defiance of current state law to keep the pot from the person, but would violate federal law to return it, Adams said.

If marijuana was completely legal in California, he said, the situation would only get more convoluted.

"I don't get any great heartburn about whether or not marijuana is legal," he said. But if the state were to make it legal, "I think that's completely unfair to officers who are sworn to uphold the law."

Any such push for marijuana legalization should emanate at the federal level, he said. "If that were to happen, I'd sit on the sidelines and eat popcorn," he said.

But an Oroville man whose medical marijuana dispensary makes deliveries to Sutter and Yuba counties said legalization in California would push the federal government in the same direction.

"I really think people are ready for this," said Travis Philmlee, the owner of Americann Collectives and Delivery in Sacramento. "It's ridiculous that alcohol is legal and readily available, and marijuana is not when it does so much less harm."

From a practical standpoint, he said, legalizing marijuana would close many dispensaries like his. But because prices at the dispensary are fairly high, he said, such a move would be good for consumers.

"I'm a proponent of lowering prices for weed," Philmlee said, adding he's been working to keep his costs lower and passing the savings along to his customers.

The region's three counties already disagree to an extent about existing state law on marijuana. While Yuba County began a card program last year for medical marijuana users, Colusa and Sutter counties have yet to do so.

Their intransigence flies in the face of a court's refusal earlier this year to accept an appeal of a lower court ruling saying California counties must establish such programs, under the requirements of Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative legalizing marijuana for medical uses.

Sutter County spokesman Chuck Smith said he knew of no push by supervisors for the county to establish such a system, nor did he know of any local external pressure to do so.

An official in Colusa County's Health and Human Services Department also said she was unaware of any effort to begin issuing cards to medical marijuana users.

The two counties are among the few holdouts in the state. While San Bernardino and San Diego counties were parties to the ruling against them that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear in May, the California Department of Public Health Web site lists both county's health departments as accepting card applications now.

Sutter and Colusa counties are listed on the site as "not yet accepting applications," as are Madera, Mariposa and Mono counties.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ben van der Meer at 749-4709 or bvandermeer@appealdemocrat.com. For more news, see Ben's blog Yuba County Insider at appealdemocrat.com.