MARIJUANA DRIVES THE COUNTY

To the Editor:

I would like to cancel my subscription to your newspaper because I am
no longer willing to support the editor KC. Meadows and her political
views. KC.'s use of the highly visible newspaper to skew the facts
and the reality of marijuana in our county according to her opinion
and agenda is an unfortunate misuse of her position as information
purveyor for our community.

The facts are that if marijuana cultivation was not so prevalent in
our community, we wouldn't have much of a community at all. Marijuana
cultivation is what has allowed this county to stay afloat after the
collapse of the logging industry.

It has kept the small businesses going in our beautiful downtown areas.

It is estimated by many of the small businesses and store owners in
the downtown Ukiah that roughly 60 percent to 70 percent of the sales
made by them are to cash carrying buyers who are obviously part of
the cultivation community in Mendocino County. The majority of these
people are peaceful, loving families working hard to survive in a
county that ranks 12th from the bottom in median income among the 58
California counties.

It seems to me that KC. Meadows is lobbying against the very people
that are allowing her to continue to have a job.

It is no secret that the federal government has suppressed sound
scientific studies from all over the world (including U.S.
institutions like UCLA) regarding the benefits of marijuana so they
can continue to demonize it and its users in order to suppress any
threat to major industries such as tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical,
the federally subsidizes eradication and forfeiture organizations,
and the private prison industry to name a few. All one has to do is
read about the origins of the marijuana prohibition to realize that
our government was and still is lying to the American people,
ignoring factual studies and court orders so that certain large
industries that marijuana competes with can continue to make huge
profits. I find it interesting that most of the vineyards in the
county supported the YES on B Coalition. Afraid of competition? Perhaps.

I also find it disturbing that KC. and the rest of the anti-marijuana
contingency looks so harshly on the isolated incidences in which a
violent crime is perpetrated involving marijuana, when in K.C.'s very
own paper there is a daily list of people creating huge threats to
our community by driving under the influence of alcohol.

No one seems to bat an eye at the massive number of people creating
alcohol induced death machines.

It's mathematical fact that the annual rate of deaths from alcohol
outnumber the deaths from marijuana by well over 100,000. Less than 1
percent of the county's 40,000 plus emergency calls placed to 911
were marijuana related.

How many were alcohol related?

Maybe those numbers should be looked at too. Marijuana makes people
calm and peaceful, alcohol makes people violent and belligerent with
a serious lapse in judgment.

Who are the real demons here? The vineyards that clear cut thousands
of acres of oak trees (all one has to do is fly over the Ukiah Valley
to see the huge areas oak trees that have been cut down and replaced
with vineyards), blanket these 1000's of acres with commercial-grade
pesticides, add relatively few, mostly low paying immigrant type jobs
to our economy, and which contribute to drunk driving, domestic
violence, and a portion of that 100,000 plus annual deaths, or the
majority of the people in our county who grow 25 to 100 plants on
their own property without chopping down a ton of trees, without
polluting the ground and air with commercial-grade pesticides to grow
a product that makes people calm and peaceful?

Marijuana directly contributes to less than 20 deaths per year. The
math is simple, over 100,000 annual deaths linked directly to alcohol
(I'm not even including 200,000 plus tobacco deaths) to less than 20
annual deaths linked directly to marijuana.

The economics of marijuana cultivation in our county has allowed most
of us to be able to continue to live here despite the lack of good
paying jobs. It has fueled the latest real estate boom. There are
very few ways that people in our county can earn enough money to
afford a home or some land, yet property values appreciated
handsomely over the last five years due to Mendocino County's
position in regards to Prop 215. The property values have also
remained relatively steady in comparison to the rest of the country
during the current real estate fall out (land prices have hardly
dropped at all). It has supported all of the real estate agents,
escrow companies, appraisers, banks, construction and construction
supply companies, the clothing stores, restaurants, car dealers,
doctors, chiropractors, dentists, charter schools, teachers and just
about every service offered in our county.

Even your newspaper, it's reporters, and delivery people.

All of this from the relatively small Ma and Pa growers (medical or
not). Who says the money doesn't stay in our county?

It sustains our county.

True, the mega-large commercial growers have no place in our county
nor in our forests.

We need to focus our resources on dealing with those people, not the
people who are truly part of our community and contribute to the
lifeblood of our economy.

The last fact that I would like to point out is that even though the
Yes on B Coalition thinks that it has a majority in our county (a
rather slim one at that), their majority is of the people who vote.
It is no secret that a majority of marijuana cultivators have
apprehension to getting "on the radar" by registering to vote out of
fear of our federal government and its draconian policies that defy
common sense.

So K. C., please stop kidding yourself.

While you may feel that you represent the majority of our county with
your registered voters, your development and wine industries flying
above the radar, the true majority in this county are the ones who
make and spend their dollars here and keep this county alive.

The selective spending of dollars is most effective voting mechanism
possible and therefore I will no longer vote for your newspaper or
your opinions.

I am canceling my subscription to the Ukiah Daily Journal. It is my
hope that you will realize who pays your bills and stop shooting
yourself and the rest of our county's small businesses (including the
law enforcement officers) in the foot and start working
constructively to harness the potential tax dollars of our county's
economic lifeblood.

I encourage others to use their spending habits to cast their vote too.

Linda Carricaburu

Ukiah

Editor's response: Sorry to see you go. Clearly you were an avid
reader. You can still read the Daily Journal on-line for free at
www.ukiahdailyjournal.com