A proposed medical marijuana collective in Oceano might test the stance of current county authorities’ opinions toward the operation of dispensaries in San Luis Obispo County.
Tammy Murray, owner of Compassionate Cannabis in Goshen, Calif., applied to build a medical marijuana collective at 1409 S. Fourth St. in Oceano. She submitted the application in May and it will likely come up for final review by the end of this year, said Paul Teixeira, supervisor of the 4th district for the County of San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors.
The proposal may serve as a test for the members of the board, who voted in 2007 to permit the operation of medical marijuana facilities. Since the vote, no applications have been approved.
Prior applications did not have a history of success.
In 2008, an application for a dispensary in Templeton was rejected, and last year board members voted down a proposed dispensary in Nipomo, citing it was too close to a children’s gymnastics center.
A dispensary opened in Morro Bay in 2006, but was closed approximately a year later following a raid by the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency. Officials found federal violations during the raid.
This application might meet the same fate if Teixeira’s attitude toward the proposal is in line with the rest of the board members. Teixeira said he has a number of concerns regarding the proposed collective, including increased crime, traffic obstacles, public access to marijuana as a recreational drug and the safety of children in the area.
“I have no problem with medical marijuana,” he said. “I have a problem with the way they want to distribute it. If it’s a medical drug and they’re using it for medical purposes, they should be able to get it at a pharmacy.”
Under the current law, medical marijuana cannot be sold at pharmacies.
Ryan Stewart is a medical marijuana patient who was recently diagnosed with Glaucoma. He said the drug helps him deal with the symptoms of his disease.
“I’ve noticed that when I smoke the good stuff, the pressure I feel in my head disappears, which is essentially what Glaucoma is — pressure around the optic nerve behind the eyeball,” Stewart said.
He said marijuana also helps alleviate some of his mental distress.
“To be honest, whenever I’ve stopped smoking for a while, I notice that my thinking isn’t as positive, and my relations start to sour,” Stewart said.
Debbie Geaslen, the legislative assistant of the 4th district, said she questions the healing abilities of medical marijuana.
“I think it’s a perceived medication,” she said. “I think we’re just being conditioned in society to accept it.”
Teixeira said his concerns are less centered on the drug’s medicinal value and more centered on public safety concerns. He said he worries the facility will attract crime to an area with comparatively low levels of law enforcement personnel.
Medical marijuana facilities cannot be built in central business districts, according to state law.
“If it’s such a great deal, why did they exclude it to the unincorporated areas of the county that doesn’t have regular police protection?” Teixeira said. “If it’s such a great thing, then it needs to be in the city of San Luis, and in the cities like a regular business where they can control it. But the cities pitched such a fit about it, that they said, ‘OK, we’re going to send it to the unincorporated areas.’”
Geaslen said that law enforcement officers in the area have expressed similar concerns.
“The sheriff’s department certainly doesn’t want it either,” she said.
Sheriff Parkinson could not be reached for comment, but in an email exchange between Geaslen and Kenneth Conway, commander at the San Luis Obispo sheriff south station, Conway wrote, “NO! I do not want a marijuana dispensary in my town! One, it’s legalized drug dealing. It will be an attraction for thefts, burglaries and robberies. They also tend to sell weed out the back door of the dispensaries. While it’s supposed to be for non-profit…who sells marijuana to not make a profit?”
Murray’s application will be heard by the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission within the next few months. The collective’s final fate will be decided by the Board of Supervisors. It is projected that they will review the application before the end of the year.