Measure B last June in Mendocino rescinded a previous measure that allowed for the personal possession of and expanded cultivation of medical marijuana. Arcata adopted an ordinance late last year that regulates grow houses. Together, these two measures and other similar ones emboldened the prosecutor in Mendocino County and a judge or two in Humboldt County to take a hard line on marijuana growers. These elected officials should be cautious. While they lead a backlash against the spread of marijuana cultivation, with harsher punishment for growers, they risk a stronger backlash at the polls.
It is disconcerting to hear around the courthouses of Mendocino County deputy district attorneys with marching orders arguing “zero tolerance” on marijuana cases and at least one judge in Humboldt County meting out sentences on first-time marijuana growers until now reserved for cocaine and meth dealers. One deputy district attorney in Mendocino stated, “the people have spoken,” referring to Measure B, when demanding a 365-day sentence for a 19-year old HSU student caught driving a few pounds of marijuana through Willits. This is a kid with a perfectly clean record. The type of felony insisted on by the DA will never come off his rap sheet and will destroy his chance of getting a decent job in the future.
We need to gain perspective. We should remember that the personal possession of marijuana is all but legal in California — if one is caught with an ounce or less of marijuana the penalty is a $100 fine, it is basically a traffic ticket. Should we treat the people who provide them with an ounce of what is all but legal the same way we treat heroin, cocaine or meth dealers?
Small scale commercial weed growing is to Mendocino county what building cars is to Detroit or making movies is to Hollywood – it’s the very reason the place exists. When the people of Mendocino County voted for B to repeal G, which was the measure that allowed possession and cultivation of up to 25 plants, it wasn’t because the people of Mendocino suddenly got sick and tired of marijuana growing. They got sick and tired of the results of prohibition that led to large-scale indoor grows that destroyed neighborhoods with grow houses and brought dangerous criminal outsiders into the county for huge outdoor grows.
Topics: California, Measure B, Measure G, Mendocino County
out of my nose 3 [...]
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