MEASURE STRIVES TO CURB GROWING OF MARIJUANA IN MENDOCINO COUNTY

WILLITS - Voters in this rugged stretch of Northern California took
marijuana laws to new heights in 2000, allowing residents to grow up
to 25 marijuana plants for medical, recreational or personal use.

But eight years later, some are campaigning to scale back the law,
saying it's time to weed out pot profiteers.

"We want to take that welcome mat away," said Ross Liberty, spokesman
for Measure B, which goes before Mendocino County voters Tuesday.

Opponents say they, too, want to evict large-scale, criminal
operators. But they say Measure B won't address that issue and will
instead go after the people who need medical marijuana.

"What (Measure) B does is redefines who gets arrested and the 'who'
will be medical patients that are growing more than six plants," said
Laura Hamburg, who became active in the No on B campaign after her
medical marijuana garden was raided.

The issue offers a glimpse into the murky world of medical marijuana
in California, legal under state law, banned by the feds, and
according to some reports, bringing some serious green into the Golden State.

Using marijuana for medical purposes has been legal in California
since 1996, when voters passed Proposition 215. But that law had only
a sketchy mechanism for how marijuana would be produced and dispensed.

State lawmakers subsequently allowed counties to issue ID cards to
protect medical users from being prosecuted by local authorities.
Each cardholder is allowed to have up to a half-pound of dried
marijuana or six mature marijuana plants, although local governments
can set laws exceeding the state's limits.

Meanwhile, federal authorities, who never recognized Proposition 215
and deny marijuana has medicinal properties, have won a number of
legal showdowns over the measure.

In 2000, Mendocino County voters approved Measure G, which had a
25-plant limit and permitted personal and recreational use, the
latter a symbolic gesture since neither state nor federal laws allow
personal pot use.

The new law, Measure B, would repeal Measure G and set plant limits
at state levels.

Sheriff Tom Allman says the problem with Measure G is it gave the
impression marijuana had been legalized in Mendocino County. "There's
this perception that we're just a bunch of Cheech and Chong marijuana
growers up here," Allman said.

Mendocino County has long also been famous as a source of high-grade
pot. Estimates on how much money is generated by marijuana in
Mendocino County and statewide vary; officials say it's hard to come
up with a definite total since so much of the industry is undercover.

Figures from the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP)
show more than 220,000 plants were seized in Mendocino County last
year, up from about 136,000 the year before.

Statewide, CAMP reported seizures of 2.9 million plants with an
estimated wholesale value of $11.6 billion.

Hamburg, the daughter of former Democrat Rep. Dan Hamburg, grows
medical marijuana for herself, her mother and her sister as well as a
neighbor. She was raided last year by deputies who said they found an
excessive number of plants. The charges were later dropped.

Hamburg says there is no correlation between state seizure figures
and county plant limits, pointing out that CAMP stats show Mendocino
County ranked fourth in 2007 seizures. No. 1 was sparsely populated
Lake County, which follows the state minimum of six plants, with
nearly 483,000 plants seized.

She argues that it's not Measure G that spurs marijuana growth in
Mendocino County but its climate, topography and the institutional
knowledge gleaned from decades of marijuana farming.

But Allman and others say cannabis became a lot less covert here
after Measure G passed. "It's in-your-face bad," Allman said. These
days, he said, residents complain they can't sit in their back yards
because the smell of the next-door marijuana patch is so strong.

On the other side of the Measure B issue are George and Jean Hanamoto
of Willits. George Hanamoto, who is 74 and grows and uses marijuana
to relieve glaucoma and for back pain, said reducing plant limits to
six would hurt people like him because growing conditions mean he
can't always get the maximum out of each plant.

Allman says the Hanamotos aren't the kind of people he'll be sending
deputies after. He said he will continue to concentrate on large operations.

Beyond that, "I want the rest of the state and possibly the nation to
say, 'Wow, we can't do whatever we want in Mendocino County,' " he said.