BERKELEY,Calif. - Medical-marijuana growersin Mendocino County — a Northern California outpost that is home to vegans,vintners, libertarians and aging hippies — want to have their pot certified asorganic.
The notion ofpesticide-free pot is making some people smile. But county officials say theissue is serious, and they are asking the state whether they can regulatepot-growing and pronounce some crops organic.
They say thatwith no system to regulate cultivation, consumers are at risk.
“We regulatewine grape growers and pear growers and everybody else, so why shouldn’t wealso regulate pot growers?” said Tony Linegar, assistant agriculturalcommissioner for Mendocino County. “It’s really an agricultural crop. In ourestimate, it should be subject to a lot of the same laws and regulations ascommercial agriculture.”
California,one of 11 states with medical marijuana laws, allows people to grow, smoke orobtain pot with a doctor’s recommendation. Around the country, medicalmarijuana has slowly moved toward the mainstream, with local law enforcementagencies issuing “user cards,” and insurance companies honoring claims for stolenplants.
If the countygot the go-ahead to regulate organic medical marijuana, it would be “absolutelya first,” said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform ofMarijuana Laws. Regulating cultivation would be “a huge leap in the publicdiscourse and policy-making, in that it recognizes that medical cannabis islegal but it needs to have some sort of local controls placed on it.”
Acting on arequest for two marijuana growers who want their crops to be certified organic,and concerned by reports of someone getting sick in another county frompesticide-treated marijuana, Mendocino County Agricultural Commissioner DaveBengston wrote to the state Department of Food and Agriculture last month.
Bengston asked whether the county cancertify pot as organic and whether employees should be inspecting marijuananurseries to check for pests and other problems as they do with other crops.
Departmentspokesman Jay Van Rein said Monday the secretary is studying the request.