Mendocino County officials are under federal orders to surrender
records from their now-suspended medical marijuana permitting program,
raising questions about the fate of growers named in the permits as well
as more than $800,000 in fees collected from pot farmers.
But Sheriff Tom Allman, whose department was tapped to run the
program approved in March 2010, said the exercise may be worthwhile if
it brings some clarity to a murky legal area in which state and federal
law conflicts.
