MEDICAL MARIJUANA CONFUSING TO EVERYONE

Mendocino County Sheriff Tony Craver agrees things are confusing when
it comes to medical marijuana.

"It's a nightmare," he said. "It's confusing to everybody."

Craver said pot plants grown by medical marijuana ID cardholders at their
homes are "left alone."

"We have no statutory authority to establish guidelines as to where they
have to have gardens, security measures to take, etc.," he said. "The people
who are empowered and technically obligated to clean this up, the
Legislature, has been unable to do this. There's a whole myriad of issues
they're stumbling around over."

Craver said there have been three different attempts to try to get the
Legislature to "clean up" Proposition 215 with some statewide standards.

"The last attempt made it through the Senate and the Assembly and was vetoed
by the governor," he added. "So you know it leaves us all in a quandary,
with everyone to fend for themselves."

Craver said the question is "How much can you possess? Is it unlimited? Is
it whatever the court deems reasonable? Every county in California has a
different philosophy on this."

Craver said a California State Supreme Court decision two weeks ago
regarding a medical marijuana grower in Tuolumne County upheld that
California's Proposition 215 defends patients from prosecution.

"You can't be prosecuted if you have a documented doctor's recommendation,"
explained Craver.

As for Mendocino County, Craver said, "We were one of the front runners in
coming up with standards as far as I know. We were the first county to come
up with the medical marijuana card."

Craver said there were some misconceptions about the ID program, that the
anti-marijuana community feels the ID cards empower people to use marijuana.
"No," Craver declared, "we issue the card to confirm a doctor has empowered
them to consume marijuana, to readily identify them as a lawful consumer to
law enforcement so they don't seize their marijuana or attempt to prosecute
and spend time on something already investigated it's saving time, which is
saving cost, and also it alleviates the anxiety of medical growers."

Craver explained that even though the law says all a medical grower has to
have is a recommendation by a physician, not an ID card, by having an ID
card they avoid being hassled.

"The prospective medical marijuana patient gets a packet from the Sheriff's
Office, the District Attorney's Office or any of the branches of Public
Health, and they take that to the doctor who certifies that the above-named
person has recommended this person to use marijuana to relieve pain and
suffering," Craver said.

The doctor then mails this to a Public Health officer who confirms the
signature to be legitimate, and then Public Health notifies the Sheriff's
Office.

"Then we contact the patient and say we've gotten approval so come on down,"
he continued. "We take down certain information and then issue a fertile ID
card."

Craver said this system has worked out quite well. Even if a person does not
have his ID on him, a law enforcement officer can call the name in to an ID
card data base.

If a person has a "fertile" ID card, Craver said the risk most pot growing
patients run is not being hassled by law enforcement, but being hassled by
neighborhood kids who have often engaged in stealing marijuana.

"We make the recommendation of putting a big dog in the garden," Craver
said. "Also, people have collective gardens which they take turns watching."

But the rub on the whole program is the fact that marijuana has a high
street value, and Craver's not afraid of stating that he agrees with the
philosophy that eliminating that street value by legalization would stop
much of the marijuana problem in terms of theft or commercial growing
operations tied in with organized crime.

"Let me say I'm not in favor of smoking marijuana," Craver said, "but the
people that consume it could care less what I think that's never stopped
somebody. But I do believe that if you took the profit out of growing you're
not going to see the major violence with it, the shootings and robbery, when
today it's worth $5,000 a pound. People would still steal other people's
marijuana, but it would be like stealing someone's tomatoes."

Craver said 68 percent of California residents favor legalization "It's
pretty obvious," he said. But this majority does not exist in law
enforcement.

Craver said he has taken "a lot of flack" from within the ranks for his
views. "If you lined up every cop, 98 percent would say they hope we never
legalize marijuana, that it's a horrible, evil drug. But the reality is it
being illegal is not preventing significant numbers of people from using it.

"People say 'What about our kids?' but, you know what? They're using it," he
continued. "Maybe if we took the resources used to eliminate marijuana and
used it to deal with behavior, kids using it, people using it in the
workplace, driving around stoned."

Craver said the big issues his opposition in the last election campaigned on
were his doing away with the DARE drug education program for kids and the
25-plant limit for medical marijuana growers which was called "excessive."

As for the latter, Craver said, "We don't set the limits; plant limits are
set by the district attorney."

As far as DARE is concerned, he said it had been in existence in Mendocino
for 15 years, and that kids 7 to 10 years old who went through the DARE
program when it began are now 25 year olds.

"They've been through a DARE program and here they are in jail," he said.
"Is it effective? I say no. What you tell kids when they're 7 years old may
have an impact on them when they're in their 30s, but when you're between 18
and 35 you're impacted by peers and your own associations and
interpretations of what's wrong."

Craver said the widespread opposition to marijuana by law enforcement
officers is the result of "the people they deal with on a daily basis.
They're dealing with that hard criminal element, most of whom smoke
marijuana or have it. So it's a direct association with dirtbags, and
they're all in the marijuana culture thing. So it's an unrealistic view in
the minds of a lot of officers. They don't realize the number of
professional or blue collar people who are law-abiding but smoke joints
regularly."

Craver said the philosophy that "every junkie started by smoking marijuana"
is a fallacy. "If you go to Death Row and ask how many French fries they had
before killing someone, does it mean French fries cause murder?"

To Craver, the reality is that some people just have a "predisposition
they're prone to some sort of abuse of a substance, whether alcohol or
marijuana, they're looking for something in life, and they can't find it
smelling the roses or having coffee with K.C. Meadows (a reference to the
Daily Journal editor's Thursday morning Meet the Editor breakfasts at
Schat's Bakery)."

Though Craver said the marijuana eradication efforts are not going after
smaller gardens, he said he doesn't have sympathy for a "guy with 10 plants
in his yard if that person has the misfortune of us stumbling onto his
garden, we're not going to walk away unless he has a medical defense."