Yolo County Could End Medical Marijuana Cultivation
YOLO COUNTY (CBS13) — Could medical marijuana operations be plucked out of Yolo County?
It's something that could be considered by the Board of Supervisors in August.
The county enacted an interim ordinance last year allowing for the cultivation of medical marijuana. Cultivators and growers say they're now worried about their patients and the future of their farms.
"Finally I found something that I can use that I'm not going to have to take something else to counteract," said Laura Mendez.
Mendez is talking about medical marijuana—specifically CBD oil—which comes from the cannabis plant.
She was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia at a young age.
"I always felt like I had the flu, my body hurt. I'd have a fever, I wasn't able to get up and walk very much, I was very weak," Mendez said.
Mendez discovered medical marijuana 13 years ago and said because of it, she feels like a whole new person.
"It helps me to get out of bed, and to face the day," Mendez added.
Come next month, Mendez may not be able to get her medical marijuana prescription in Yolo County.
The county sent a letter in the beginning of July, telling the community it's considering different options for the interim ordinance it passed last year. That ordinance allows medical marijuana cultivation with a county permit.
The board said it could decide to keep the program, expand it, or pull out altogether.
"We have almost 30,000 patients here who depend on this medicine, and if we don't have locally permitted farms, we will not have medicine next year," said Kimberly Cargile.
Cargile runs A Therapeutic Alternative in Sacramento but operates a CBD farm in Yolo County. She says if the county slashes the ordinance, she'd be out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Getting that money back to start over again isn't easy, says Cargile.
"You have to move to an area like the city of Sacramento, or Humboldt County or Monterey County," Cargile said.
Cargile adds thousands of jobs would be burned around Yolo County if legitimate growers were to lose their permits.
It would be another roadblock for Laura Mendez to get her medical marijuana that she says keeps her active, and pain-free.
"Why take something away that is so beneficial to people?" Mendez said.
The Yolo County Board of Supervisors will meet at 9 a.m. on August 1. The Yolo County Ag Commissioner says his agency has paused the application process until the board decides how it wants to handle the ordinance.
