T
The420Guy
Guest
UKIAH, Calif., Sept. 29 - No one can say for sure when the first seeds were planted, or how
things reached the point where marijuana became Mendocino County's No. 1 cash crop and
claim to fame.
What is a given is that pot (the word of choice) is part of life here. It is so pervasive that
when asked just how pervasive, residents chuckle and say you must be from somewhere
else. Nearly everyone has an anecdote about stumbling onto the plant in a field or knowing a
friend who grows it in the backyard. A local law firm makes a practice of marijuana legal
defense and a public radio station warns residents when government helicopters are spanning
the countryside looking for marijuana gardens.
"Well this is the Emerald Triangle, after all," said Susan Billy, who runs a jewelry bead store
in Ukiah, the county seat. The Emerald Triangle is the nickname for the three North Coast
counties - Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity - known collectively for growing the most, and
to connoisseurs the best, marijuana in the country. "Everyone assumes everyone uses pot,
even if, like me, they don't," said Ms. Billy, with a shrug. Like most people interviewed at
random, she said she believed in live and let live about it.
In fact, people here say it is time to decriminalize marijuana once and for all. Not medicinal
pot; that issue was decided in 1996, when 64.5 percent of Mendocino County voters
approved the statewide initiative on marijuana for medical use.
What the county is apparently about to become is the first place in the country that would
allow residents to grow marijuana for personal use. A citizen-sponsored ballot initiative that
would allow them to do so, known as Measure G, is on the ballot in November. It was signed
by 5,900 Mendocino County voters, twice the required number, and is expected to pass by a
wide margin. (A ballot measure in Alaska that would legalize marijuana and offer restitution
to those who have served prison time for using it faces stiff opposition.)
Measure G would instruct the county sheriff and district attorney to make marijuana
enforcement their "lowest priority with respect to other crimes," and "remove the fear of
prosecution and the stigma of criminality from people who harmlessly cultivate and/or use
marijuana." It would allow residents to grow up to 25 plants, at a street value of about
$100,000, without fear of arrest. Transporting and selling pot would still be crimes.
While state and federal drug laws would supersede the local measure, rendering it moot,
proponents say it would be an important first step in challenging the thinking that makes using
marijuana a criminal offense but drinking alcohol socially acceptable, even desirable.
"What this initiative does is cap a 20-plus-year war on marijuana," said Dan Hamburg, a
former Democratic congressman and now one of the local Green Party members who drafted
the measure.
"Measure G says this war has wasted lots of money, wasted lots of lives, and the whole logic
behind pot being illegal is ridiculous and false," Mr. Hamburg added, "especially for a county
that so touts its alcohol making, particularly its wine and microbreweries. Microbreweries
practically started here, and I have a friend who was busted for four scrawny little plants."
He is not alone in saying that the laws that bring in swarms of local, state and federal drug
agents to the Emerald Triangle right about now, in the fall harvest season for marijuana, are
hypocritical. The annual marijuana eradication effort will spend $1 million to destroy the
illegal crop, with a street value estimated at $1 billion. Yet new wineries are growing and
established ones expanding throughout this once wild country that begins about 100 miles
north of San Francisco.
"I think the whole war on marijuana is just ridiculous, given the alcohol that is manufactured
here," said Alana Oldham, a 20-year-old environmental activist who grew up in Potter Valley,
farm country that has been taken over by grape growers. "Everyone I know is voting for the
measure. Absolutely everyone."
Ukiah and Boonville (the most politically progressive town in Mendocino) and other small,
quaint towns in the county look like typical sleepy communities, with a deli here, a cafe there,
an animal hospital or two along the road. The vegetarian, ex-hippie crowd is outnumbered by
the lumberjacks and plain folk. There are no pot paraphernalia shops in the county, and the
only sign that displays any marijuana culture is a sign on Route 128, entering Boonville, that
reads "Yes on G," with a marijuana leaf.
Of course, not everyone is voting for the measure. Michael Delbar, chairman of the
five-member board of supervisors, said: "My concern is, what message does that send to our
children? There are folks in the county who try to equate tobacco and alcohol with
marijuana. But two of those are legal. If they want to make a political statement, fine. If
they want to change the law, let them go 3,000 miles and lobby Congress."
Proponents of Measure G said it was not about about endorsing the large commercial growers
in the region, or the small commercial growers for that matter.
"Sometimes," Mr. Hamburg said, "you get the idea from the opponents that Mendocino
County would become the mom-and-pop pot-growing capital of the universe."
MAP posted-by: Don Beck
Newshawk: Robert Field Common Sense for Drug Policy and Amanda
Pubdate: Sun, 1 Oct 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Address: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622
Website: Breaking News, World News & Multimedia
Forum: https://forums.nytimes.com/comment/
Author: Evelyn Nieves
things reached the point where marijuana became Mendocino County's No. 1 cash crop and
claim to fame.
What is a given is that pot (the word of choice) is part of life here. It is so pervasive that
when asked just how pervasive, residents chuckle and say you must be from somewhere
else. Nearly everyone has an anecdote about stumbling onto the plant in a field or knowing a
friend who grows it in the backyard. A local law firm makes a practice of marijuana legal
defense and a public radio station warns residents when government helicopters are spanning
the countryside looking for marijuana gardens.
"Well this is the Emerald Triangle, after all," said Susan Billy, who runs a jewelry bead store
in Ukiah, the county seat. The Emerald Triangle is the nickname for the three North Coast
counties - Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity - known collectively for growing the most, and
to connoisseurs the best, marijuana in the country. "Everyone assumes everyone uses pot,
even if, like me, they don't," said Ms. Billy, with a shrug. Like most people interviewed at
random, she said she believed in live and let live about it.
In fact, people here say it is time to decriminalize marijuana once and for all. Not medicinal
pot; that issue was decided in 1996, when 64.5 percent of Mendocino County voters
approved the statewide initiative on marijuana for medical use.
What the county is apparently about to become is the first place in the country that would
allow residents to grow marijuana for personal use. A citizen-sponsored ballot initiative that
would allow them to do so, known as Measure G, is on the ballot in November. It was signed
by 5,900 Mendocino County voters, twice the required number, and is expected to pass by a
wide margin. (A ballot measure in Alaska that would legalize marijuana and offer restitution
to those who have served prison time for using it faces stiff opposition.)
Measure G would instruct the county sheriff and district attorney to make marijuana
enforcement their "lowest priority with respect to other crimes," and "remove the fear of
prosecution and the stigma of criminality from people who harmlessly cultivate and/or use
marijuana." It would allow residents to grow up to 25 plants, at a street value of about
$100,000, without fear of arrest. Transporting and selling pot would still be crimes.
While state and federal drug laws would supersede the local measure, rendering it moot,
proponents say it would be an important first step in challenging the thinking that makes using
marijuana a criminal offense but drinking alcohol socially acceptable, even desirable.
"What this initiative does is cap a 20-plus-year war on marijuana," said Dan Hamburg, a
former Democratic congressman and now one of the local Green Party members who drafted
the measure.
"Measure G says this war has wasted lots of money, wasted lots of lives, and the whole logic
behind pot being illegal is ridiculous and false," Mr. Hamburg added, "especially for a county
that so touts its alcohol making, particularly its wine and microbreweries. Microbreweries
practically started here, and I have a friend who was busted for four scrawny little plants."
He is not alone in saying that the laws that bring in swarms of local, state and federal drug
agents to the Emerald Triangle right about now, in the fall harvest season for marijuana, are
hypocritical. The annual marijuana eradication effort will spend $1 million to destroy the
illegal crop, with a street value estimated at $1 billion. Yet new wineries are growing and
established ones expanding throughout this once wild country that begins about 100 miles
north of San Francisco.
"I think the whole war on marijuana is just ridiculous, given the alcohol that is manufactured
here," said Alana Oldham, a 20-year-old environmental activist who grew up in Potter Valley,
farm country that has been taken over by grape growers. "Everyone I know is voting for the
measure. Absolutely everyone."
Ukiah and Boonville (the most politically progressive town in Mendocino) and other small,
quaint towns in the county look like typical sleepy communities, with a deli here, a cafe there,
an animal hospital or two along the road. The vegetarian, ex-hippie crowd is outnumbered by
the lumberjacks and plain folk. There are no pot paraphernalia shops in the county, and the
only sign that displays any marijuana culture is a sign on Route 128, entering Boonville, that
reads "Yes on G," with a marijuana leaf.
Of course, not everyone is voting for the measure. Michael Delbar, chairman of the
five-member board of supervisors, said: "My concern is, what message does that send to our
children? There are folks in the county who try to equate tobacco and alcohol with
marijuana. But two of those are legal. If they want to make a political statement, fine. If
they want to change the law, let them go 3,000 miles and lobby Congress."
Proponents of Measure G said it was not about about endorsing the large commercial growers
in the region, or the small commercial growers for that matter.
"Sometimes," Mr. Hamburg said, "you get the idea from the opponents that Mendocino
County would become the mom-and-pop pot-growing capital of the universe."
MAP posted-by: Don Beck
Newshawk: Robert Field Common Sense for Drug Policy and Amanda
Pubdate: Sun, 1 Oct 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Address: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622
Website: Breaking News, World News & Multimedia
Forum: https://forums.nytimes.com/comment/
Author: Evelyn Nieves
