As the reality of licensed medical cannabis growing facilities and dispensaries looms closer, counties and municipalities are grappling with how to properly zone and cite such facilities.  While no county has expressed interest in banning the facilities, debate is underway as to the proper level of zoning authority counties should have regarding location and citing.  While medical cannabis advocates tend a favor a minimum of local government oversight, counties and municipalities must balance valid public access issues with community concerns, public nuisance issues, security and infrastructure requirements of the facilities, and federal law and funding issues for medical facilities and pharmacies.  Additionally, they must consider whether the zoning they create now would still work if the State were to ultimately legalize marijuana in the future.

Zoning issues were one of the topics discussed at a medical cannabis session at the 2015 MACo Summer Conference and will very likely be a key topic at MACo’s 2015 December Winter Conference.

2015-08-18 Conduit Street Article on MACo Summer Conference Medical Cannabis Session

The debate intensified with the introduction of legislation by Baltimore County Councilwoman Vicki Almond, who is seeking to comprehensively address county siting concerns at the start of the licensing process.  Almond has stated that she supports medical cannabis and that the provisions of the introduced bill were unintentionally too restrictive and could result in a de facto ban of dispensaries in the county. She also stated that if the bill were to move it would be amended to have reasonable zoning and siting limitations. Baltimore County is the first county to entertain legislation on the issue.

An August 14, 2015, Baltimore Sun Editorial argued that there are valid concerns that need to be addressed with medical cannabis but cautioned county lawmakers from immediately imposing additional restrictions.

[Prior to the issuance of regulations by the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission], we hope county lawmakers will hold off at least until then on enacting additional restrictions of their own on medical marijuana. People are understandably nervous about what the law will mean for their communities, but it would be a pity if local lawmakers overcompensated by loading medical marijuana down with so many restrictions and obstacles to access that it can’t help the patients with cancer, epilepsy and other illnesses the law was intended to benefit. Rather than undermine the program before it even gets off the ground the wiser course would be to wait and see whether it can be successful.

In principle there’s no reason medical marijuana dispensaries should be treated differently than traditional pharmacies or drug stores. No one would suggest banning those businesses near churches or schools, even though pharmacies routinely dispense prescription drugs that are far more dangerous than cannabis. The zoning laws applied to marijuana dispensaries ought to be no more restrictive than those governing a CVS or Walgreens.

Further, Marylanders do not expect county government to put its head in the sand and ignore what likely comes next. The examples of Colorado and Oregon, combined with statements by members of the state legislature make it clear that sometime in the next “year or two” legislation for the legalization of recreational marijuana is a real possibility in Maryland.