If legalizing cannabis was a simple matter, Proposition 64 could have been written in a lot less than 62 pages of small type.

But personal possession and use of marijuana have been effectively decriminalized in California for many years, and the primary purpose of the 2016 initiative was to turn a black-market enterprise into a commercial business.

Even at 30,415 words, Proposition 64 left some tough choices to local governments, including whether to authorize commercial marijuana farming in Sonoma County’s unincorporated neighborhoods.

We chose the word “authorize” because cannabis gardens of varying size already exist in many rural residential areas, often without proper permits. Some neighbors object to the skunky odor and, having witnessed violent home invasions, fear for their safety.

Finding common ground won’t be easy, but revisions to Sonoma County’s cannabis ordinance slated for consideration today by the Board of Supervisors would be a good first step.

Under the revised rules, growers would be required to:

— Obtain a use permit for cultivation on properties smaller than 10 acres in nonindustrial zones. The process includes notifying neighbors, environmental review and public hearings.

— Obtain a zoning permit for larger properties. These permits are easier to obtain, but approvals could be appealed to the county Board of Zoning Adjustments.

— Live on-site during cultivation in residential areas.

Neighborhoods could seek a special zoning designation prohibiting cannabis farming, an approach the board took with vacation rentals.

The proposal also offers added flexibility for growers, including:

— Authorizing cultivation permits for 651 parcels zoned rural residential or agricultural residential where cannabis farming isn’t presently allowed.

— Extending the life of cannabis use permits from one year to five and the life of cannabis zoning permits from one year to two.

— Allowing permits to be transferred to a new owner.

Neither side is entirely satisfied with this proposal, but both sides stand to gain. And the county plans to continue its review of cannabis regulations, so further adjustment are possible.

From our perspective, the top priority is public safety.

A thriving black market remains almost two years after voters approved Proposition 64, as evidenced by a series of violent home invasions in Sonoma County earlier this year and the recent kidnapping and killing of a Cloverdale man, which investigators attribute to marijuana dealing.

Rogue cannabis farms also pose a threat to water supplies and wildlife habitat.

Growers who come out of the shadows should be less likely to cause environmental damage, and they may be more likely to take advantage of offers from the Sheriff’s Office to consult on safety and security measures. The permitting process, in turn, would give residents assurance that growers are operating with county oversight.

By some estimates, there are 5,000 marijuana growers in Sonoma County, but fewer than 180 had applied for permits through mid-July. That’s a lot of room for improvement.

We opposed Proposition 64, but voters approved it by a substantial margin, so there’s little to be gained from continuing to debate the wisdom of legalizing marijuana. It makes more sense to focus on eradicating the black market. Striking a balance between the commercial interests of legal growers and the property rights of their neighbors is a good place to start.

© 2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Visit The Press Democrat at www.pressdemocrat.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The legalization of cannabis for recreational use this year has brought new consumers into the fold of the multibillion-dollar retail marketplace in California — but not all are looking to get high.

In fact, the easing of the stigma over cannabis has caused a surge this year of people using the plant for health and wellness reasons, even though medical marijuana has been legal in the Golden State for more than 20 years, industry officials said.

The newer users range from women looking to ease the nausea from chemotherapy and treatments for breast cancer — a disease which cannabis advocates say the plant appears to be uniquely suited for — to lawyers looking to reduce stress after a difficult workweek.

To accommodate the heightened interest from women with breast cancer, Raea Campbell of Mendocino is working to grow sales of her line of cannabis-based oils designed for breast massage. Campbell developed the homemade product, Bosm Wellness, a few years ago as her mother, Linda, went through breast cancer and found that the extracts from the plant helped her get through the disease with limited side effects.

Campbell had a limited production run in 2017, which she said was encouraging.

“It was overwhelming … I couldn’t keep up with demand,” she said. “It was a small-scale thing. I didn’t have a lot of funding to scale up.”

She is now searching for a company that can make and distribute her line, given new regulations that went into effect this year, particularly establishing higher standards for quality control tests.

“It’s part of inspiring a healthy breast lifestyle,” Campbell said.

The North Coast stands at the center of such activity, in large part being in the heart of the Emerald Triangle counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity that historically have been the most prized growing region for cannabis. That means the local region is teeming with growers, manufacturers, medical professionals and retailers who are catering to the demands of customers looking for additional relief that is not provided by traditional medical practitioners.

“The frequency of these patients for cancer has just blossomed in the recent years,” said Jeff Hergenrather, a Sebastopol doctor who has provided recommendations to patients for cannabis treatments for almost 20 years. About a third of his patients have cancer, including breast cancer patients.

When Hergenrather started providing recommendations, almost all of his patients were already cannabis users. Today, more than half of his clientele have not tried marijuana before they visit him.

“I am busy. It’s a new era,” he said.

The sector, however, is still limited by restrictions in federal law, where the possession of cannabis is illegal with the narrow exception of a few research settings. Marijuana remains listed as a so-called Schedule 1 drug — the most severe category — by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. There is “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” with such drugs, according to the agency.

Yet the tide is turning for a plant the has been used for thousands of years to treat medical conditions. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. Last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issued a report that surveyed research on the health effect of cannabis, including more than 10,000 scientific abstracts.

© 2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Visit The Press Democrat at www.pressdemocrat.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reported that a judge sided with the family of 5-year-old Brooke Adams.

The Rincon Valley Union School District in Santa Rosa sought to ban the ointment from school grounds because it contains the active ingredient in marijuana.

Authorities argued that allowing Brooke to use the drug at school violated state and federal laws barring medical marijuana on school grounds.

Medical marijuana use in private with a doctor’s recommendation is legal in California.

A judge’s temporary order permitted Brooke to start school in August while the district’s objections were considered. A nurse accompanies Brooke to school and has had to apply the oil three times to treat seizures.

Judge Charles Marson made the order permanent on Friday. Marson is a judge in the state office of Administrative Hearings’ Special Education Division, which handles disagreements between school districts and parents of children with disabilities.

“I was so overwhelmed with emotion and joy that we don’t have to fight anymore after a battle of over two years,” said Jana Adams, the girl’s mother. “She can just go to school like any other child and we don’t have to keep pushing to get what she needs.”

The family’s lawyer Joe Rogoway said he hopes the ruling opens the door for other students who say they need to use a cannabis-based drug on campus for medical reasons.

District officials said they were reviewing the decision and haven’t decided whether to appeal. Assistant Superintendent Cathy Myhers said the district is relieved to have legal guidance on the issue.

“We are pleased with the decision and guidance,” Myhers said. “We are happy to have a decision that supports our ability to educate and serve this student in our public schools.”

Sonoma County on Friday touted its efforts to rein in unauthorized cannabis operations after facing criticism from some rural residents who say county officials haven’t done enough to shutter pot farms that don’t have permits.

Since the start of last year, code enforcement staff members have forced more than 600 unpermitted cannabis operations to close and billed more than $435,797 in fines, according to a Friday statement from the county’s planning department, Permit Sonoma. The county said it quickly responds to cannabis-related complaints and forces operators to comply with county rules.

Maggie Fleming, spokeswoman for Permit Sonoma, said the statement was issued in response to community feedback and a “lack of understanding that the county was taking action” against cannabis businesses operating without permits.

“We really just wanted to educate people on the work that’s been happening,” she said.

Complaints about the county’s cannabis-related code enforcement were recently lodged by a group of residents outside Petaluma who sued a nearby pot grower in federal court last month. The county had started enforcement actions when the suit was filed, but critics said the process didn’t move fast enough.

In a subsequent deal with county code authorities, the cultivation company tentatively agreed to stop operating after harvest and the owner of the property agreed to amend the deed to prohibit growing marijuana.

Fleming said that property is not included in the list of unpermitted operations the county says it has shut down because the deal is still being finalized.

The county said it has received 682 complaints about cannabis cultivation on private property since January 2017. So far, staff members have inspected 662 of those properties, forcing 638 to stop growing and allowing 24 to continue operating while seeking a permit. Another 20 inspections are scheduled “in the near future,” the county statement said.

Kevin Block, a Napa-based lawyer representing the neighbors outside Petaluma who filed the federal lawsuit, was skeptical of the county’s numbers.

“They paint a picture of swift and effective enforcement, and what I’m seeing and hearing on the ground is anything but,” Block said. “They’re trying their best, I’m sure. I give them credit for that. But what they really need to do is they need to put this cannabis program on hold until they can devote the resources necessary to implement it in an orderly way and to make it work for everybody.”

Assuming the code enforcement deal is finalized and implemented, Block said his clients will still seek damages and attorneys’ fees.

Pot growers, meanwhile, have their own concerns with the county.

Tawnie Logan of Santa Rosa-based Canna Code Compliance said removing illegal operators is “absolutely essential” but the county has been “woefully underperforming” its processing of permits for cannabis growers.

“Operators are going broke. They cannot continue to afford to play the waiting game that the county has put them in,” said Logan, former executive director of the Sonoma County Growers Alliance. “It’s offensive … to say that they’re investing so much money and time into illegal operators while they continue to be understaffed and underperforming for the businesses that want to be compliant and legal.”

© 2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Visit The Press Democrat at www.pressdemocrat.com.  Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday advanced revisions to rules governing cannabis businesses and farms outside city limits that would include allowing recreational sales at dispensaries and limiting most cultivation sites to properties 10 acres or larger.

The Board of Supervisors rejected two proposals aimed at addressing an increasingly contentious debate over where outdoor growing should occur in Sonoma County. One would have allowed neighborhood groups to lobby supervisors to ban cultivation in their areas on a case-by-case basis. The other would have enabled cultivators to appeal to the board to allow cultivation in an area where it’s currently prohibited.

Instead, the board opted to balance the interests of the two competing interests — marijuana farmers and anti-pot neighborhood groups — by signaling support for a more thorough permitting process for smaller pot farms, which are more likely to prompt concerns from neighbors than larger ones, according to county officials.

“I’m hopeful we can come to a broad consensus,” Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said. “Having this (the rules) keep changing is really hard for (cannabis) operators and is really hard for neighbors who have no idea what the hell is going to happen. We need to expedite the permitting process to provide answers.”

Tuesday’s meeting was the first opportunity for the board to discuss specific proposed amendments to the county’s ordinance, drafted in December 2016. It featured one of the most heated policy debates faced by the supervisors this year. On one side are cannabis cultivators pushing for more flexibility to launch their business under new legal restrictions. On the other side are anti-pot residents who have launched a campaign to keep marijuana out of their areas, if not out of the county entirely.

The five-hour hearing involved a lengthy presentation and public speakers — board Chairman James Gore at one point said he received 56 comment cards from participants — including cannabis supporters wearing green hats that read “Support local farmers” and people opposed to marijuana cultivation wearing red hats with the slogan “Save our Sonoma neighborhoods.” The debate drew a crowd of more than 200 people who filed the seats and spilled into the hallway.

Ultimately, the supervisors chose to support a series of proposals aimed at fostering a newly regulated cannabis industry while encouraging compliance with strict requirements. The county has only approved 18 cannabis businesses since they began accepting applications more than a year ago.

Supervisors signaled their approval of the changes by preliminary votes, which require confirmation in a meeting set for Aug 28. The revisions include:

Allowing production and sales of recreational marijuana products in unincorporated Sonoma County in accordance with state laws.

Requiring any new cannabis cultivation permit applicants to operate on parcels of at least 10 acres in size, while allowing applicants with approved or pending permits on smaller parcels to be grandfathered in.

Extending the term of permits from one year to 2 and 5 years for zoning and use permits, respectively.

Establishing 1,000-foot setbacks with pubic parks, with exceptions granted on a case-by case process.

Allowing additional space beyond cultivation areas for use in plant propagation.

Changing the taxation rules to allow payment schedules better aligned with the outdoor growing season and reducing penalty rates from 25 percent to 10 percent in an effort to get more cannabis businesses to pay taxes.

© 2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Visit The Press Democrat at www.pressdemocrat.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A marijuana deal gone bad fueled an escalating dispute between a Healdsburg man and the one-time business partner he is suspected of killing before burying his body deep beneath a pot patch west of town, according to Sonoma County sheriff’s officials.

New details emerged Friday about the slaying of Jose Martinez, 46, of Cloverdale, whose body detectives unearthed Wednesday from a marijuana garden off West Dry Creek Road.

Martinez, an employee of Friedman’s Home Improvement, went missing June 29 along with his white Toyota Tacoma pickup.

That’s when the sheriff’s detectives say Socorro Sierra, 34, of Healdsburg and two other men — Santa Rosa residents Felix Fernando Carreon, 43, and Climmie Smith-Hill, 30 — kidnapped Martinez outside of Ray’s Food Place, a Cloverdale grocery store, before driving him to The Geysers geothermal area, where he was shot to death in a creek drainage.

Surveillance video from the store put Martinez there that morning, but did not capture the suspected kidnapping, said Sgt. Spencer Crum of the Sheriff’s Office. That’s the last time Martinez was seen alive, he said.

All three suspects remain in custody without bail at the Sonoma County jail. Investigators say they learned through interviews with witnesses and family members that Martinez was involved in “significant marijuana dealings” and had been receiving threats from Sierra.

“There was a problem with a marijuana deal and Sierra ended up threatening Martinez over the business deal,” Crum said. “Somehow, somebody crossed somebody.”

Sheriff’s officials have not detailed the extent to which Martinez is thought to have known the three men, including Sierra, who detectives say used a handgun to carry out the slaying.

On Facebook, Martinez’s profile shows him connected with Sierra, but not to Carreon nor to Smith-Hill. Sierra was also tied to Carreon, and Carreon to Smith-Hill, but the Sheriff’s Office said it doesn’t know if the two Santa Rosa men were also part of the alleged marijuana dealings.

Attempts to reach Martinez’s family were unsuccessful Friday. His friends and relatives consoled each other on Facebook.

“I’m in shock and I’m heartbroken,” Julia Ramirez, a niece, wrote below a family photo that included Martinez.

Family members had posted flyers seeking information into his disappearance shortly after reporting him missing to Cloverdale police on July 2.

Mark Ryan said he and Martinez were co-workers about five years ago at Friedman’s as truck drivers delivering lumber to work sites and homes. The death of his former colleague didn’t add up.

“He’s really kind of unassuming and just a regular guy,” said Ryan, a Sonoma County resident, adding the two had met when Martinez was about 18 years old and worked together at a local winery. “He was a very good person and it kind of shocked me that he was involved with people like that.”

Katie Holden, the Friedman’s spokeswoman, said the company was making grief counseling available to employees at stores in light of Martinez’s death.

“We are saddened and are processing the news of his passing,” Holden said in a statement.

Cloverdale police put out a missing person alert on July 5, providing a description of Martinez and his truck. At the time, Cloverdale police said foul play was not suspected.

© 2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Visit The Press Democrat at www.pressdemocrat.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.