MEDICAL MARIJUANA CONFUSING TO EVERYONE, SHERIFF SAYS

Part Two: In the first part of this article, "Mary" expressed her
concern about a run-in her 15 year old son had with their medical
marijuana-growing neighbor, who fears his plants will be robbed. Mary
expressed her concerns that there are "no real regul

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 were 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."