A Yavapai County, Arizona prosecutor says his boss wants state law changed so that medical marijuana growers can’t get agricultural exemptions from county zoning and locate near schools or churches.

Deputy County Attorney Jack Fields recently briefed the county’s Board of Supervisors on County Attorney Sheila Polk’s proposal to limit medical marijuana zoning.

Polk wants to add a sentence to a state law on county zoning to say the cultivation of marijuana is not an agricultural operation.

While there is no reason for marijuana to be grown on farms near schools or churches, acting like cannabis is not a real farm product sets a dangerous precedent. Most definitions of agriculture include the raising of crops, and cannabis is a crop that is grown and harvested.

Many officials still feel a need to make marijuana separate from everything else, a result of 75 years of false propaganda.

- Joe Klare