The county is moving forward with a plan to further regulate medical marijuana businesses in the unincorporated areas of the county to meet growing concern about the nature of the businesses in the unincorporated areas of the county.

The Housing, Health and Human Services Committee of the Board of Supervisors approved forwarding a draft medical marijuana ordinance to the full board at its Tuesday meeting and it will likely be heard by the board April 28, according to county officials.

The draft ordinance was requested after three San Mateo collectives were shut down in raids Aug. 29, 2007 and the city began its own investigation. The San Mateo City Council had its second reading of its own ordinance Monday night that would require medical marijuana dispensaries to register through the police department and meet certain security and business regulations. It also prohibits collectives from anywhere in the city but manufacturing and service commercial areas.

For the most part, the ordinance regulates the “collective” cultivation of medical marijuana. Collectives are places where people pool their money and time to grow marijuana in one central location. Dispensaries simply distribute and are already prohibited by law.

While state law allows collectives, it places few limits on the activity and some cities, like San Mateo, are taking steps to fill the void. San Mateo County is moving forward with its own ordinance after two medical marijuana businesses opened in North Fair Oaks. The proposed county ordinance requires primary caregivers to maintain a list of people to whom they provide care and would require a license. Before such a license is granted, the County License Board would ensure that the collective would not adversely affect the economic welfare of the community and the use of property used for a school, playground, park, youth facility, child care facility, place of religious worship or library and be buffered from any residential area.

California voters passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, in 1996, allowing sick patients to either grow their own marijuana or have a primary caregiver grow it for them. In 2003, the state Legislature passed the Medical Marijuana Program Act to clarify vague portions of Proposition 215.