MARYSVILLE — An organization that has supplied marijuana to medical patients won’t know until next week whether it will obtain permission to operate in this city.
Hearing Examiner Ron McConnell on Wednesday postponed a decision on the city’s recent denial of a business license to Elevated Medical Treatment.
He continued a public hearing on the matter until 9 a.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 1049 State Ave. McConnell said he wanted to read the 190 pages of exhibits in the case, including correspondence and legal research.
The organization, registered with the state as a nonprofit, applied for a business license with the city of Marysville in March. City officials determined the group’s office in a single-family home on Smokey Point Boulevard was operating as a dispensary, illegal under state law, and denied the license. Elevated Medical Treatment appealed the denial.
Marijuana was made legal for medical use in the state by initiative in 1998, but it must be grown by the user or a designated provider. That provider must be an individual, not a group, and may provide only to one person.
All business at Elevated Medical Treatment in the past has been done on a one-to-one basis, two members of the group said Wednesday.
The group agreed to shut down its operation in late April until legal issues could be worked out with the city.
Before, each patient that came in registered as a member of the group and then designated one of the other people in the group to be their provider during that visit, said Kathleen Jensen of Arlington, one of the directors. All members are volunteers and the group typically has operated with between two and five people, she said.
The group has run like a co-op with all marijuana donated by patients who often have more than they can use, member Anna Orr said.
Under state law, each patient or provider may grow a 60-day supply of marijuana, defined as 24 ounces and 15 plants. It is not legal for anyone to buy or sell the drug, and is not legal to possess it except by personal growing for prescribed medical use.
Orr said 15 plants usually contain well over the 24-ounce limit and patients need to give it away to keep from possessing it illegally.
“They don’t want a big pile in their house because it makes them a target,” Orr said.
All fees collected for the cannabis are strictly suggested donations, in the model of public television stations providing a gift in exchange, Jensen said.
City planning manager Sheryl Dungan said she visited the office in late April and observed patients come in and showing their medical qualifications to receive marijuana.
Patients were then escorted to a back room where they received the medicine, she said at the hearing. Orr and Jensen confirmed her account.
“My impression was they weren’t trying to hide anything,” she said.
“We don’t want to fly under the radar,” Jensen said after the hearing, explaining why the group applied for a business license. “We want to be open and honest.”
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
