Global Ganja Report

A proposed ordinance going before Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee next week aims to curtail indoor cannabis growers in the city by regularizing major producers for the medical market. Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid propose permitting four large, industrial-scale cultivators, who would then supply Oakland’s six dispensaries (the ordinance would add two dispensaries to the currently permitted four) with the 6,000 pounds of cannabis the dispensaries sell a year.

Fire officials and police have been complaining for years about the risks posed by large indoor operations. Electrical fires in Oakland  increased from 133 to 276 between 2006 and 2009, a trend that’s partly blamed on indoor growing. The Oakland Police Department reports that in 2008 and 2009 there were eight robberies, seven burglaries, and two murders “linked to cannabis cultivation.” The police think those numbers only show part of the problem. Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University and the brains behind Proposition 19, helped craft the ordinance. (The Oakbook, July 1)