SHERIFF GETS OK FOR POT FIGHT

Medicinal users are told he targets for-profit growers

In what has become an annual ritual in recent years, Santa Cruz County
supervisors Tuesday heard from a dozen individuals opposed to spending
public funds to fight marijuana, then voted to apply for those dollars.

The $250,000 in state and federal funds -- the same amount the county
received last year -- is used by the county sheriff to sniff out local
marijuana farmers. A controversial part of the sheriff's anti-marijuana
campaign includes helicopter overflights in rural Santa Cruz County areas
favored by pot growers.

Before opponents of the grant aired their views, supervisors heard Sheriff
Mark Tracy describe the program as a key part of law enforcement's efforts
to fight drug and alcohol problems.

``This,'' the sheriff said, ``is a piece that we cannot overlook.''

Tracy noted that he had ``worked closely'' with advocates of medicinal
marijuana to focus his investigations on commercial growers who harvest
crops solely for profit.

In fact, speaker after speaker praised Tracy for his ability to communicate
with them, to listen to their concerns and to understand the needs of
patients who depend on small amounts of the illegal drug for medicinal
purposes.

``There are two distinct issues,'' medicinal marijuana advocate Valerie
Corral told supervisors. ``I don't want to confuse the medical marijuana
with the issue of the drug-suppression grant.''

Corral, recently appointed to a statewide medicinal marijuana panel by
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said Tracy has been ``responsive
2E . . and open in discussions about medicinal use of the plant.

But, she testified, about half of the 1.6 million people in American
prisons are behind bars for drug crimes -- an expensive component, she
said, of the nation's $17 billion annual war on drugs.

``It's time to change the laws to protect people'' instead of incarcerating
them, she said.

Arguing against helicopter overflights in rural Santa Cruz County, another
speaker noted that the sheriff's annual report on his marijuana-suppression
program shows that the number of plants found growing outdoors is
diminishing each year. With more growers tending pot plants hidden indoors,
the speaker said, helicopters have become almost irrelevant, ``an invasion
of privacy for other rural residents.

Yet another speaker noted that prohibition of alcohol created a culture
that glorified gangsters. The speaker, Alan Brady, said modern prohibition
is doing something similar. ``Our children are getting tattoos and
listening to gangster rap,'' he said. ``Let's end it!''

Tracy, sitting in the audience, joined Brady's comrades in applause at the
end of his brief testimony.

Other speakers told of ``spy operations involving the National Guard
helicopters used during the annual aerial searches for marijuana.

Carolye Kuchta, who lives with her husband and their 11-month-old child in
the hills near Davenport, described helicopter overflights as ``obnoxious
and said they left her frightened and stunned at a place where they had
moved for the serenity of nature.

After closing the public hearing, supervisors voted as they always do -- to
approve the application for the anti-marijuana grant. Only Supervisor Mardi
Wormhoudt dissented.

Then, all of her colleagues joined Wormhoudt in ordering the board chairman
to write to local representatives in Congress and to agencies that disburse
marijuana-suppression money urging them to change state and federal laws so
that local jurisdictions can use such funds to fight local drug problems as
they see fit.

Wormhoudt agreed with speakers who said that heroin has become a severe
problem among high school students in the Santa Cruz area. She said recent
statistics indicate that 5 percent of those local students have admitted
using heroin in the past year, a figure she said was ``off the charts when
compared with a 1 percent figure nationally.