Lucius,
Are you set up as a caregiver? I thought that being a caregiver/dispensary was the only way you could get around the 2 oz possession limit? I don't disagree with you about 20 plants being about all I could ever imagine needing for personal use, but my understanding is that some people don't like to smoke it and want to make edibles instead, which requires a lot more plants. My issue is that the way the laws are set up now you're taking a chance anytime you have more then 6 plants even if you have the recommendation for a higher plant count. Sure, you'll win in court, but that won't stop the cops from arresting you, tossing you in jail, seizing your equipment and plants, etc.
There are just too many grey areas in the laws right now because (in my opinion) neither side of the debate is really open to compromise on certain things. The growers, dispensaries and patients don't really want any kind of restrictions placed on how much they can use, possess or grow, or on who can get an MMJ card, while the state wants to set limits that are so restrictive that you might as well just make it illegal again.
Politics is all about compromise, so we need to figure out what things we're willing to give the state and what we want in return. To me the easiest thing to trade would be the commerical growing in residential areas, because it's a no brainer. Commercial growers tend to have a large amount of fertilizer, chemicals, etc on hand, and that stuff can explode or turn toxic when exposed to fire. It just makes sense to tell the commerical growers that they need to set up shop in someplace that's zoned for commercial business and that's properly wired for the kind of power their operations require. In return, I'd want the state to increase the plant limit for personal growers to 20 (10 veg, 10 flower) and increase the possesion limit to 1/2 lb, while doing away with all plant count limits and possesion amount limits for commercial growers. I would support the idea of making the commercial growers keep records of how much they harvested and the amount involved in each sale to keep them honest about only selling to dispensaries and legal MMJ patients though.
The next item I'd compromise on is the requirements to get an MMJ card. I'd be willing support the states idea to review the medical data on people under the age of 21 before issuing the card as long as the review board was entirely made up of doctors and that at least 50% had favorable attitudes towards the use of MMJ (no stacking the boards with doctors who will deny every application). In return I'd ask them to drop the entire concept of requiring patients to submit to a state run physical exam and leave the requirements the way they are currently for all patients over 21.
Last item I would compromise on is the cost of an MMj card. I think it's totally ridiculous that it costs $90 to get a card on a cheap piece of paper that won't stand up to hardly any abuse (do yourself a favor-get the thing laminated) and that it only lasts for a year, but I'm willing to let them kick it up to say $125/yr in exchange for them dropping any idea about including a rule that would allow/require the state to notify the local police if someone's card expired for any reason. Don't know about you, but I'd rather pay a bit more then have to worry about the cops kicking in my door because some clerk entered a date into the computer wrong.