Measure A is bad for local small farmers

I write to urge Humboldt County voters to vote No on Measure A, aka the Humboldt Cannabis Reform Initiative. It is misleading, destructive, and just plain bad law. I am a California environmental regulatory compliance attorney and have worked in that capacity since 1989.

For 11 years I prosecuted environmental crimes on the North Coast, eight of them in the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office. I have represented commercial cannabis farmers and operators in Humboldt County in achieving commercial licensure since cannabis was first legalized. More recently, I lead-authored a new chapter on “Commercial Cannabis Development: Licensing and Permitting” for a legal treatise, covering all of the pertinent statutes and regulations governing the Department of Cannabis Control as well as policy and guidance documents from the State Water Resources Control Board and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Among many others, here are three examples from its stated “Purpose” of why Measure A is bad law:

First, Measure A purports to “ensure greater public participation in decision-making.” Instead, it misleads the public and in so doing nullifies the collaborative will of Humboldt County's citizens who worked for years to shape the county's commercial cannabis ordinances. The initiative over-regulates an already hyper-regulated industry and will severely limit the ability of Humboldt's world-famous cannabis farmers to survive. It is complex legislation by initiative fiat with no public input of any type, and to secure its changes it amends the county's General Plan to prohibit any collaborative process to address those amendments. I.e., it reduces public participation. Why do the measure's proponents so disrespect their fellow Humboldt County residents' extensive grassroots efforts and sacrifice?

Next, Measure A also purports to reduce “potential impacts to streams and watersheds.” That is hardly the case. California employs a two-tiered approach for commercial cannabis licensure: first a local land use permit must be obtained and only when one has such a permit can one apply to the state for a license. The great bulk of the time, effort and money to obtain full licensure is expended at the local level, as that is where a multitude of natural resource agencies must be satisfied in order for the local government to issue its permit. It is these agencies which collectively have imposed a wider array of regulations on cannabis than on any other commercial agricultural product. In particular, the SWRCB and the DFW impose extensive and strict regulatory regimes including stream gages reporting, diversion restrictions and forbearance periods not existing for other crops. Examples: The Water Board's “General Order for Cannabis Cultivation Activities” is 25 pages long, with its “Cannabis Cultivation Policy” document running 117 pages, and the Policy's “Attachment A, Definitions and Requirements for Cannabis Cultivation” running another 70 pages. There are many, many more cannabis regulatory documents from the Water Board and the DFW (in addition to other agencies addressing issues beyond water). These state agencies have already imposed extensively researched and publicly vetted cannabis industry water protections targeting specific watersheds far beyond any other crop in California, and Measure A just piles on more.

Most devastating is the measure's comprehensively restrictive definition of the term “Expanded” (regarding “uses”) and its radical reach in prohibiting any form of expansion to a cannabis permit holder, a wooden stake unheard of for any other permitted activities. The initiative reads: “Examples of `expanded' uses include, but are not limited to, an increase in cultivation area, water usage, energy supply, or the number or size of any structures used in connection with cultivation.”

Here are three examples of how the initiative's “Policies” will strangle Humboldt's small farms (emphases added): (1) “Limitations on … Permits,” CCP2 prohibits any “expansion” for any farm over 10,000 square feet, (2) “Discretionary Review,” CC-P8 requires “all applications for new or expanded” cultivation over 3,000 square feet to require a Conditional Use Permit (or equivalent) “regardless of size, land use designation, or zoning classification”; and (3) “Roads,” CC-P13 requires that applicants for any “permit for new or expanded” cultivation activities on a parcel served by a private road without a centerline stripe be accompanied by a licensed engineer's report “that the road meets or exceeds the Category 4 standard,” a standard that very few rural roads in Humboldt meet.

There are a great many good reasons why Measure A is bad for Humboldt, I offer these three. Measure A is anti-democratic, overkill, hurtful for Humboldt County, and must be voted down.