COUNTY TAKING STEP TO LEGALIZE POT

UKIAH, Calif. - No one can say for sure when the first seeds were planted,
or how things reached the point where marijuana became Mendocino County's
No. 1 cash crop and claim to fame.

What is a given is that pot (the word of choice) is part of life here. It
is so pervasive that residents, when asked how pervasive, just chuckle and
say you must be from somewhere else. Nearly everyone has an anecdote about
stumbling onto the plant in a field or knowing a friend who grows it in the
back yard. A local law firm makes a practice of marijuana legal defense and
a public radio station warns residents when government helicopters are
scanning the countryside looking for marijuana gardens.

People here say it is time to decriminalize marijuana once and for all. Not
medicinal pot; that issue was decided in 1996, when 64.5 percent of
Mendocino County voters approved the statewide initiative on marijuana for
medical use.

What the county is apparently about to become is the first place in the
country that would allow residents to grow marijuana for personal use. A
citizen-sponsored ballot initiative that would allow them to do so, known
as Measure G, is on the ballot in November. It was signed by 5,900
Mendocino County voters, twice the required number, and is expected to pass
by a wide margin.

Measure G would instruct the county sheriff and district attorney to make
marijuana enforcement their "lowest priority with respect to other crimes,"
and "remove the fear of prosecution and the stigma of criminality from
people who harmlessly cultivate and/or use marijuana."

It would allow residents to grow up to 25 plants, at a street value of
about $100,000, without fear of arrest. Transporting and selling pot would
still be crimes.

While state and federal drug laws would supersede the local measure,
rendering it moot, proponents say it would be an important first step in
challenging the thinking that makes using marijuana a criminal offense but
drinking alcohol socially acceptable, even desirable.

"What this initiative does is cap a 20-plus-year war on marijuana," said
Dan Hamburg, a former Democratic congressman and now one of the local Green
Party members who drafted the measure. "Measure G says this war has wasted
lots of money, wasted lots of lives, and the whole logic behind pot being
illegal is ridiculous and false," Hamburg added.