ONE COUNTY GOES TO POT

Mendocino County is first in nation to legalize marijuana growing;
each resident can raise 25 plants

UKIAH -- Voters in Mendocino County decided it's high time to
partially decriminalize their most valuable cash crop -- marijuana --
in the first such ballot measure in the nation.

Measure G allows residents of the verdant county on the North Coast to
cultivate up to 25 marijuana plants apiece. The initiative faced no
organized opposition and passed Tuesday with 58 percent of the vote.

A handful of liberal college towns such as Berkeley; Ann Arbor, Mich.;
and Amherst, Mass., have decriminalized smoking marijuana, Mendocino
becomes the first community to sanction growing it, according to the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

But is the grass really greener the other side of Election
Day?

Measure G doesn't mean marijuana is completely legal in Mendocino
County now -- state and federal drug laws still apply, as well as the
limitation to 25 plants. The perception that locals can grow with
impunity simply is not true.

"There are people, when we catch them, they're going to give that 'Why
are you guys doing this to us?' line," said Mendocino County Sheriff
Tony Craver, who signed a petition to put Measure G on the ballot but
ended up opposing the initiative. "I'm worried about the frustration
and heartaches it's going to cause."

Law enforcement may not be the only barrier to the county's green
thumbs -- marijuana bandits, sometimes heavily armed, still will raid
growing patches.

"People think they can grow in their front yards, and it ain't gonna
happen," said John Heubel, 37, a Measure G backer who said he has
harvested 20 plants a year. "They're still going to get ripped off."

Indeed, marijuana is big and sometimes dangerous business because
Mendocino County is ground zero for some of the most sought-after
marijuana grown by man. It's not just the quality; this region
produces an annual marijuana crop estimated near $1 billion.

But it wasn't the commercial growers that pushed Measure G. In fact,
some backers say, the big-time operations don't like Measure G because
it likely will increase the local marijuana supply and hurt their profits.

At present, the potent green bud fetches more than gold: An ounce can
cost $400 on the street.

"I'm sure there were a few growers who kicked in 10 or 20 bucks to the
campaign," said Dan Hamburg, a former Democratic congressman and
leading backer of the initiative. "But this thing was not financed by
growers, because they like things the way they are."

With a mere smattering of opposition, the most vocal from local
educators, Measure G backers aired four radio ads. The message in that
$7,000 campaign, Hamburg said, was not that marijuana is a basic human
right, but rather that government has no business in a grower's back
yard.

"This is a political statement," said Hamburg, whose own marijuana
plot was raided last month, two days after he showed it to a CNN
television crew. "It will spread and eventually we'll stop this
harmful and ridiculous war on drugs."