Medical marijuana has been the political equivalent of the sleeping dog the past few years, but the Santa Barbara City Council woke it up just long enough to put it back to sleep by passing an admittedly rushed ordinance banning any cultivation within city limits for anything but personal use. Those with medical-marijuana cards will be allowed to grow as many pot plants as they can in no more than 100 square feet of land, but only in their domiciles. No commercial cultivation will be allowed.
City Hall insiders acknowledge the new ordinance will have zero practical effect on medical-pot cultivation, but at least on paper the measure will be theoretically more restrictive than what’s allowed under the state law enacted by initiative in 1996. That allowed for cultivation of up to 500 square feet for personal use.
Driving the council’s hasty legislative flurry are three state laws just passed to further regulate the sale, manufacture, cultivation, and distribution of medical marijuana. Under these California laws, if City Hall doesn’t have its own regulations on the books by next March, then the state rules would govern all pot cultivation taking place in Santa Barbara. For the council to meet that March deadline, it would have to enact a new ordinance no later than January 19.