TIME TO REIN IN THE POT INDUSTRY

We're glad that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors is gearing
up to have a conversation about making clear rules around medical
marijuana growing in this county. Unlike the city of Ukiah where
growing has primarily been a problem for close-knit residential
neighborhoods, the problem of marijuana growing in the county is about
large gardens on large tracts of lands.

As Supervisor Jim Wattenburger has put it, we are a "Wild West" of
marijuana production.

This county has always been part of the Emerald Triangle, but until
Prop. 215 it was clear that all marijuana growing was illegal. Now
that medical marijuana is legal, marijuana growing has become a
quasi-legitimate enterprise that is making hundreds of thousands of
untaxed dollars for growers, while inviting violent crime and
unwelcome hoards of marijuana workers, many of whom are abusing our
local social safety net system. We like Sheriff Tom Allman's zip-tie
idea for clearly identifying each and every legal marijuana plant
being grown in the county.

Basically, each caregiver would be given color-coded and numbered zip
ties for each plant grown in the name of one patient.

No other grower anywhere in the county can have the same patient or
the same numbers on his or her zip ties. This system would eliminate
the practice of multiple caregivers growing dozens of plants for
essentially the same patients.

Sheriff Allman is the first to say his department is not interested in
prosecuting the "mom and pop" growers.

We don't have a big problem with that as long as "mom and pop" grows
are very small, meant only for personal use and not bothering a
neighbor or inviting trouble.

We think 25 plants is far too much to be considered a "mom and
pop"

operation. But more important, we have to do something soon about the
abuse of this state's compassionate use law. Before the state
Legislature enacted regulations for Prop.

215, what was legal was anyone's guess. That is no longer true. And
the county can impose its own limits as long as they are not more
stringent that the state's six mature or 12 immature plants per patient.

We'd like to see the county impose a maximum plant limit, eliminate
the current 100-square-feet garden size measurement, and then give
Sheriff Allman the resources to institute his zip-tie system.

After that, we'd like to see Sheriff Allman aggressively enforce the
limits and get after the large growers -- even those who are long time
county residents well known in their communities, not just "Mexican
cartels" growing on public lands.

With tiny individual gardens untouched and legitimate caregiver
gardens identified, the only people growing large unregulated gardens
are doing it as forprofit drug trafficking. If people in the Bay Area
need pot, let someone else grow it for them. Just a few years ago,
prosecutors and law enforcement agencies all over the North Coast felt
they had little recourse to fight the unregulated marijuana growing
and saw that local juries were rejecting prosecution of marijuana growers.

We think those times have changed.

We believe we can and should prosecute the growers who are abusing the
system and that juries will back that up. It's become clear that
unregulated marijuana growing for profit is not an industry that
provides any benefit to our citizens.

There's been a sea-change in public attitudes about pot growing in the
last few years, and the marijuana growers with their in-yourface
stance have only themselves to blame for it.