Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

At a Measure B forum before the Employers Council of Mendocino County Friday, Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott (who was in the audience, not part of the forum) said the passage of Measure B "will make my job easier." She said that defense attorneys regularly use Measure G (the 25-plant personal use ordinance that is at the root of all the excesses of the commercial marijuana industry in our county and which Measure B will repeal) as a defense on behalf of large scale marijuana growers. She also said that Measure B will likely help bring more law enforcement funding into the county from grants that we have been unable to tap as long as our laissez faire attitude about commercial growing continued.
The speakers at the forum were Ross Liberty for Yes on B and Laura Hamburg for No on B;. Ms Hamburg, who said she is a personal use gardener, made a couple of No on B's major points that were refuted on the spot by Ms. Lintott and Sheriff Tom Allman, who was also in the audience.
Ms. Hamburg said that among her fears of Measure B's effect is that it would make it too easy for sheriff's deputies to go after the low hanging fruit, the smaller growers like herself (although I don't call the 75 plants Ms. Hamburg claims to be able to grow legally a small grow) the people with more than the 6-plant limit Measure B would allow under the state's regs. Sheriff Allman stood up in the audience and said that simply wasn't going to happen. He said his department does not have that staffing to do more than he has always said he can and will do: go after large grows and go after grows that are causing a health and safety problem (which would include the in-your-face grows popping up in what used to be safe neighborhoods). Although he is maintaining his neutrality on Measure B, he did say it will make his job easier in that he believes a lot of people growing 25 plants now for whatever use, will cut back to six plants voluntarily if the measure passes.
He also said, for the record, that in the past few years (Measure G passed in 2000) a "horrendous number" of outside marijuana growers had flocked to this county. He said that there is "no question" that the marijuana growing in this county had created crime and environmental problems. As he put it, "there is a violence associated with greedy people growing marijuana."
Ms. Hamburg also said that since the county supervisors had already voted to limit the number of plants per parcel to 25, Measure B is now unnecessary. But Ms. Lintott told the audience that she knows defense attorneys are planning to challenge that as an illegal limit - presumably using the same Measure G excuses.
The No on B campaign - ably led by Ms. Hamburg, who is a personable and intelligent speaker - has made a large part of its campaign the claim that Measure B will cripple law enforcement in this county. But now both the DA and the Sheriff say that' not so.
No on B's other big argument is that Measure B will hurt medical marijuana patients. This week a group of 40 local physicians came out in favor of Measure B as protecting medical marijuana patients.
The Yes on B campaign believes that passing Measure B will send an important message to the world that Mendocino County is no longer the place to move to in order to abuse our community and environment for the sake of greed. Sheriff Allman cemented that for me Friday when he told me that he had lunched with Attorney General Jerry Brown on Monday and that Mr. Brown had told him that people throughout California were watching what happens here in Mendocino County on June 3.
Measure B is not anti-pot and it's not about medical marijuana. The vast majority of people supporting Measure B, including myself, believe that people ought to be able to grow and smoke a little pot and that medical marijuana is, in fact, helpful to the truly sick.
But now we feel like dupes for having tried to do something progressive and seeing the hoards arrive to laugh in our faces. We sent the wrong message with Measure G. Now we need to admit it was an experiment that went very wrong and bring some sanity back to our county.