VOTERS OPT TO ALLOW POT GROWING

Mendocino County Proposition Adopted With 25-plant Limitation

UKIAH -- Voters in Mendocino County, where the chief cash crop is
marijuana, decided it's high time to let people grow their own pot.

It's the first such ballot measure in the nation to pass.

The measure, which faced no organized opposition and passed Tuesday with 58
percent of the vote, would allow residents of this verdant county on
California's northern coast to cultivate up to 25 marijuana plants each.

While a few liberal college towns such as Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Mich., and
Amherst, Mass., have decriminalized smoking marijuana, Mendocino is the
first community to vote to allow the growing of pot, said the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

The measure does not mean that marijuana is completely legal here now;
state and federal laws against marijuana still apply, as well as the
25-plant limitation.

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

The region produces a crop of especially potent marijuana estimated to be
worth nearly $1 billion a year. It is more valuable than gold: An ounce can
sell for $400 on the street.

Dan Hamburg, a former Democratic congressman and leading backer of the
measure, argued not that growing pot is a basic right but that government
has no business in a grower's back yard.

"This is a political statement," said Hamburg, whose own pot 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."