NO ON MEASURE B

To the Editor:

Yes on Measure B has failed to look at the many aspects of marijuana
criminalization and legalization. If Measure B passes it does nothing
to address the real problem and that is the people in the hills with
machine guns and thousands of plants. No, it will only take up more
law enforcement time busting people growing on their land peacefully
that are already complying with the law. People that are complying
with the current law are not causing the problems that Measure B is
saying Measure G has caused. It is the people that are already
breaking the guidelines of Measure G that are causing problems.

Anytime you take something and make it illegal in the first place you
make a black market. It happened in the days of alcohol prohibition.
The Mafia took over the booze market and violence occurred. Now if
marijuana was legal people everywhere would grow their own smoke and
it would no longer be a big commercial business. But wait a second,
how would big pharmaceutical companies profit off this? What if people
in wheelchairs with MS were growing and smoking their own weed and
didn't need their oxycotin anymore? No, that can't happen. Just think
of how sad the billionaire heads of these companies would be. They
would be losing their billions more dollars to come. The truth is if
marijuana were legal pharmaceutical companies would not be able to
control it.

Why was marijuana illegal in the first place? Dupont and Hearst in
the 1930s paved the way for marijuana and hemp criminalization.
Magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering
Magazine had predicted hemp would be the number one crop in the U.S.
and the rest of the world and it had the first business potential to
exceed a billion dollars. Hemp is useful in many ways such as food,
textiles, paper, oil, and fuel. Ford had developed a Ford Model-T
back in 1941 that was made of hemp and ran on hemp oil! Hearst was
taking off cutting down trees and making paper out of them. And
Dupont had way too much potential with the petroleum based products
such as polyester and plastic. If hemp would have taken off it would
have taken 80 percent of Dupont's business. Dupont and Hearst worked
very hard putting out ridiculous propaganda such as Reefer Madness
and Marihuana: Assassin of youth. Today we still see anti- Marijuana
ads on TV that say if you buy a joint you are promoting terrorism.

I overheard a lady of about 70 years old telling her friends if
Measure B passes it would affect people like her. I would also like to
point out that Measure B supporters say that people can still get
their medicine as much as they need, they just need to go to their
doctor and their doctor can up their prescriptions. This is very
misleading as doctors are recommended not to go above the state laws
and give out more and could be subpoenaed to court. The truth is many
people all over Mendo will be turned into felons for growing a plant
that is their God given right to grow.

Chloe Hunter

Ukiah