Dear Pot Lawyer,
Has Josephine County lost its mind?
When it comes to cannabis, absolutely. In the last year, Josephine County has doggedly followed the lead of neighboring Jackson County in attempting to all but ban cannabis production on its 16,000 rural residential lots.
Our story begins with Measure 17-81, placed on the ballot by Josephine County’s Board of Commissions during the 2017 special election. The measure asked voters in the southwestern Oregon county whether it should “prohibit the production of commercial, recreational marijuana in all rural residential zones.” Sixty-four percent of voters said yes, encouraging the board to start the next step: amending Josephine County’s zoning codes to gut rural residential cannabis production. All of this was ostensibly to shut down bad actors in the local industry.
However, a group of good actors fought back, testifying at public hearings to convince the board that the proposed regulations were overly broad and would disproportionately target compliant farms, while doing little to stop the problematic farms that disrupt communities and divert cannabis into the black market. The board relented, and canned the proposed regulations at the end of last September.
Celebrations were short lived.