MENDOCINO SHERIFF, D.A. FAVOR DECRIMINALIZING POT

In Mendocino County -- where marijuana is a booming,
multimillion-dollar crop -- the new district attorney and the new
sheriff favor decriminalizing the illegal weed.

The district attorney-elect, Norman Vroman, is a Ukiah lawyer who
served nine months in a federal prison after failing to file federal
income taxes, a misdemeanor.

Vroman told The Chronicle that he favors decriminalizing marijuana
``because the war on drugs isn't working. If it is a war, we lost it a
long time ago.

``. . . I will prosecute cases of commercial cultivation, but I think
laws against the cultivation of marijuana are ridiculous. Because it
is illegal, that's what keeps the price up there.''

The new sheriff, Tony Craver, has been a lieutenant in the Sheriff's
Department and lives in Fort Bragg. He said he has no plans to ``pick
up a banner and march to Sacramento in some movement to legalize
marijuana. But my personal belief is we should deal with marijuana the
way we do with alcohol.

``We have spent billions on the war on drugs, and there's been a zero
decrease in the sale and use of drugs. . . . I am suggesting maybe we
aren't doing the proper thing.''

State law makes possession of small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor
and makes cultivation a felony.

Both Vroman, 61, and Craver, 59, said they will enforce the law, but
they said society should focus on violent crimes.

The election of the two men comes at a time when marijuana clinics
dispensing the drug in the state under Proposition 215 are being
threatened with closure or have already been closed by federal
authorities, who say the drug is illegal. That state proposition,
approved by voters in 1996, legalized the use and cultivation of
marijuana for medical purposes.

``Medical use of marijuana is a no-brainer in Mendocino County because
there is general sympathy for legalization here,'' said Mendocino
County Supervisor Charles Peterson.

``A very healthy piece of the county's economy comes from the
cultivation of marijuana,'' Peterson added. ``It's cash. It's not
taxed, and the money stays in the county.''

In the vineyard, logging and ranch country 100 miles north of San
Francisco, many people say Vroman's and Craver's election victories
show that folks are fed up with the war on drugs.

``We're as close to the laws of the Old West as you can get with these
new people being elected,'' said Bill Bailey, who runs a $10
million-a-year mail-order logging supply business in Laytonville and
employs 30 people. ``It's kind of like you obey the laws you want to.''

Sheila Larson, who owns Boomer's Bar and Grill in Laytonville, says
she has ``watched taxpayer dollars dwindle away for 20 years on the
supposed eradication of marijuana.

``I think marijuana is more prevalent now than it was in 1964, when we
moved here from San Francisco to raise our kids,'' Larson said. ``I
would prefer this eradication money go to the schools.''

For the past three years, Mendocino has led all other counties in the
number of marijuana plants seized under a state-run eradication
program. Sheriff's deputies say that last year, the department
destroyed about 170,000 plants -- valued at $68 million -- and so far
this year has destroyed about 65,000 plants -- valued at $26 million.
The drop from last year is explained by the fact that two big groves
of plants were found in 1997, according to sheriff's Captain Kevin
Broine.

``We are certainly seeing more marijuana grown up here than before,''
he said. ``It's concentrated in remote areas.''

Broine's new boss, Craver, defeated sheriff's Lieutenant Phil Pintane
by 58 percent to 42 percent in an election to fill the position left
vacant by retiring Sheriff Jim Tuso.

In the district attorney's race, Vroman defeated Susan Massini, the
county's district attorney for 12 years, by a vote of 52 percent to 48
percent. Vroman told voters he has never found any law requiring him
to file income tax returns. Since his stint in federal prison in the
early 1990s, however, Vroman -- a former deputy district attorney in
both Los Angeles and Mendocino counties -- says he now files his
income tax returns.

Bailey said he did not think the federal tax conviction would hurt
Vroman because ``a lot of people are upset with their taxes. When it
comes to rapes and holdups and all, Vroman will prosecute as much as
anyone.''

Bailey said the region generally is divided into two camps -- people
who favor legalization of marijuana and those who favor its
decriminalization for personal use.

The 56-year-old Bailey, a former logger, said, ``We think if marijuana
were legalized, it could be raised someplace else and it could be
taxed, and our community could come back to earth and live as we have
for nearly a century.''

As it is, Bailey says the illegal cultivation of marijuana brings easy
money into the community and teaches the wrong values. He said: ``The
minute your child knows the way to make a living is to stick your
thumb in the earth and drop a marijuana seed in there and water it and
sell the plant for maybe $5,000, why is there a need for education or
a need to be a team player in the community?''

Checked-by: Patrick Henry