POT BAN PUSHES GROWS INTO WOODS

Your July 15 editorial, "County strikes overdue blow with Alesia,"
tells only half the story. You write: "The figures for seizures speak
for themselves. In 2006, the statewide Campaign Against Marijuana
Planting uprooted nearly 1.7 million plants."

What you neglected to mention was that after those massive seizures
- -- up 1,200 percent in just a decade -- marijuana remained
California's No. 1 cash crop by a whopping margin. These raids don't
"eradicate" marijuana. They simply chase the growers further into
more remote, environmentally sensitive areas, while artificially
inflating marijuana's price -- and thus creating an incentive for new
traffickers to replace each one who is busted.

There's a reason we never hear of criminal gangs planting clandestine
vineyards in our national forests. If we regulated marijuana like
wine, the problem that raids like Operation Alesia seek -- and fail
- -- to solve would be eliminated overnight.

Bruce Mirken

Marijuana Policy Project, San Francisco