cannabisnews.com: Mendocino Pot Measure a First 





Mendocino Pot Measure a First 
Posted by FoM on September 18, 2000 at 11:05:37 PT
Pinches joins Green Party fight
Source: Press Democrat
Cattle rancher Johnny Pinches, a conservative former member of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, stepped outside his isolated home last week and held the phone toward the sky so a caller could hear the "whump, whump, whump" of a government helicopter passing overhead in search of marijuana gardens.Pinches said the noisy helicopters are becoming a nearly daily experience for him and other backwoods residents who live on the slopes of Island Mountain, a rugged pot-growing region where the borders of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties meet. 
Pinches and his neighbors are braced for even more flights as the harvest of the county's infamous cash crop, estimated to have a street value of nearly $1 billion, reaches its peak over the next several weeks.Before the illicit crop is in, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies will spend more than $1 million to wage their annual anti-marijuana campaign in the so-called "Emerald Triangle." It's a war that Pinches contends can never be won, despite 15 years of effort."I may be just an old hillbilly, but I figure all that money would have been better spent on fighting hard drugs like methamphetamine, and the rampant abuse of alcohol," Pinches said.To that end, Pinches has capped years of advocating the legalization of marijuana as a county supervisor and Republican state Senate candidate by endorsing a local measure on the November ballot that calls for decriminalization of the personal use of pot.Measure G, if passed by local voters, would allow pot to be grown for personal use, a first in the country. Drafted by local Green Party members, the ballot measure goes beyond local pot ordinances adopted in San Francisco and Berkeley that merely instruct local police agencies to minimize the priority of marijuana enforcement.Pinches said that as a political independent he's not worried that his endorsement of the measure might taint any future political ambitions."I don't care who the other supporters are. To me, it simply makes no sense to be doing what we're doing in regards to marijuana," Pinches said.If passed locally, Measure G would permit limited cultivation and possession of up to 25 marijuana plants per adult but would continue to make the transportation and sale of pot illegal. It also directs the county sheriff and district attorney to make marijuana law enforcement and prosecution their lowest priority and orders county officials to lobby state and federal agencies for the decriminalization of marijuana nationwide.So far, the marijuana measure has escaped local controversy and faces no organized opposition.But some local school officials and youth leaders worry passage of Measure G will send the wrong message. "It's pretty fundamental. We already have problems with marijuana use in the schools, as we do with cigarettes and alcohol. Drug use of any kind should be discouraged," said Gary Brawley, superintendent of the 6,000-student Ukiah Unified School District.Even if Measure G passes, Brawley said, the school district will continue to enforce its "zero-tolerance" marijuana policy.Rick Klug, youth and family adviser at the First Presbyterian Church in Ukiah, also said Measure G sends the wrong message. "I understand some of the arguments surrounding marijuana, but frankly I just don't think we need to be advocating drug use of any kind," he said.As it is, federal officials say Measure G isn't worth the bother. "Until marijuana is reclassified under the federal drug control act, its cultivation and use remains subject to federal prosecution no matter what state and local agencies do," said Gretchen Michael, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department.Measure G backers say they've tried to tailor provisions of the initiative to current marijuana enforcement policies of Mendocino County Sheriff Tony Craver and District Attorney Norman Vroman: targeting major pot-growing operations while ignoring "mom-and-pop" growers unless brought to law enforcement's attention.Still, Craver and Vroman said they will not endorse the measure."People should have the opportunity to make a statement about law enforcement priorities, but the fact of the matter is we are sworn to uphold laws despite questions about their effectiveness," Craver said.He said he's not an advocate of recreational marijuana use, but he said he agrees with Measure G proponents that current state and federal criminal laws surrounding pot are ineffective."There are a lot of legal, social and medical issues involved that aren't adequately addressed, but that's not my job," Craver said."Under state and federal laws, marijuana cultivation and use is illegal and because of that we will continue to go after the big operators," he said. He said he doesn't "have the time or staff to worry about mom-and-pop growers unless they're brought to our attention."Vroman said he's worried passage of Measure G might signal outsiders that there will be no marijuana enforcement in the county, traditionally one of the highest producers of the illicit weed."I fear people think growing marijuana is suddenly going to be legal and there will be no prosecution in Mendocino County. They're going to be sadly mistaken," Vroman told a crowd of Measure G proponents two weeks ago.Despite the reservations of Vroman and others, proponents are confident the measure will win voters' endorsement.Pinches said he doesn't find that surprising in a county where 64.5 percent of local voters in 1996 supported Proposition 215, which allows the use of marijuana for medical reasons. Although passed by state voters, Proposition 215 continues to be legally challenged by federal agencies, which claim jurisdiction over the cultivation and use of marijuana."By and large, people who live here are fed up with the antics surrounding the government's costly anti-marijuana campaign," he said.He said every time he sees a government helicopter flying overhead, he figures it costs taxpayers $700 to $800 an hour. "Yet down in Laytonville at the high school, the kids can't play winter sports in the gym because it leaks so badly. Where's our priorities?"Pinches signed the ballot argument in favor of Measure G, which was placed on the November ballot by a unanimous vote of the Board of Supervisors after promoters collected more than twice the required number of signatures from registered voters.Other signers include Millie Lehrman, founder of the Ukiah Cannabis Club; Ukiah physician Peter Keegan; Ann Deirup, a county leader for the Gray Panthers; and Richard Johnson, publisher of an environmental weekly newspaper and chief organizer of the Measure G campaign. Former Rep. Dan Hamburg, D-Ukiah, is a member of the campaign committee.Author: Mike Geniella, Press Democrat Staff Writer You can reach Press Democrat Staff Writer Mike Geniella at 462-6470 or e-mail at: mgeniella pressdemocrat.comPublished: September 18, 2000Source: Press Democrat, The (CA) Copyright: 2000 The Press Democrat Contact: letters pressdemo.com Address: Letters Editor, P. O. Box 569, Santa Rosa CA 95402 Fax: (707) 521-5305 Website: http://www.pressdemo.com/ Forum: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/talk.htmlFeedback: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/letform.html Related Articles & Web Sites:The Green Partyhttp://www.greenparty.org/Compassionate Use Act of 1996 - Chronologyhttp://drugsense.org/CCUA/chrono.htmlPot Warriorhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7047.shtmlSan Bernardino Pot Bust Linked To County http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7036.shtmlRaid Yields Plantshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7015.shtmlWeeding Out Pot Farms From Aloft http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6950.shtml 
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Comment #2 posted by observer on September 18, 2000 at 19:16:08 PT
Inquisitor Apologist, Man of God, Witch-hunter
Rick Klug, youth and family adviser at the First Presbyterian Church in Ukiah, also said Measure G sends the wrong message.Excuse me, reverend? Did I NOT hear you mention anything about PRISON? No? But, Pastor ... sending a "message" isn't what the measure is about. Not throwing adults in prison. That is the issue. Do you think the good pastor might stand in front of the flock and explain he is "advocating" sodomite rape in the prisons he's recommending for peaceful adult users of cannabis? http://www.spr.org Isn't that "advocating" violation of Leviticus 20:13? You think I'm overstating the case just a tad? Think again.. . .but that he [a notorious prison rapist] is typically reshuflled by the guards into cells with 'fresh fish,' or new inmates."10 In the age of AIDS, prison rape is also a form of Russian roulette, which makes it an all-the-more terrifying weapon. As one HIV-positive prison rape survivor put it: "nowhere in the book of rules was it written that I got to be here to get raped, that I have to have them destroy my mind, that I am supposed to get AIDS." This same inmate went to the guards for protection but said their reply was:"Welcome to Shirley. Toughen up, punk."11When asked to comment on the low-intensity rape and AIDS-driven death camps being run by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, spokesman Anthony Carnevale said: "Well, that's prison... I don't know what to tell you."12 The trope of prison rape as "just deserts" circulates even in the genteel upper echelons of the criminal justice system. For example, an Assistant United States Attorney, seeking the extradition of three Canadians accused of fraud, warned that if any one of them resisted extradition they would face a long, hard prison term as "the boyfriend of a very bad man." The presiding Canadian judge didn't find this amusing and temporarily blocked extradition.13More often, prison satraps belie the centrality of rape to their management strategies by their absolute and total denial that prison rape even occurs. For example, Utah prison officials, seeking accreditation of their system's medical facilities, denied that there had ever been a single rape in any Utah prison, a claim that was no doubt difficult even for caffeine-free Mormons to believe. The emphatic denial was made all-the-more absurd by ample documentation to the contrary, including a trial transcript in which one inmate was convicted and sentenced to fifteen extra years for raping a fellow prisoner.14 In Massachusetts, following a Boston Globe exposé on prison rape, corrections bureaucrats still felt free to deny the reality of a high profile rape case even as the victim was in the hospital undergoing rectal surgery.15 Nor is it uncommon for prison officials to accidentally lose crucial evidence and forget to conduct medical exams when rapes are reported.16Such denials are perfectly rational: to admit that inmates rape each other is to invite lawsuits. In 1994 the Supreme Court ruled in Farmer vs. Brennan that penitentiary officials are responsible for protecting prisoners from sexual predation. The case was launched by a transgender person -- serving twenty years for credit card fraud who was housed with violent male prisoners and, to no one's surprise, was viciously gang raped.17 Since then, several other inmates have tried to sue for damages after contracting HIV during their tenure as jailhouse sex slaves. One such case involved a 28-year-old married man used as a prostitute by a prison gang which peddled him from cell to cell in full view of guards. In at least two cases COs even brought customers to the victim's cell or escorted him down the tier to other cells where customers raped him and then paid the inmate pimps with cigarettes, drugs, and candy. Despite the precedent of Farmer, this young man was not awarded damages.18 James Dunn, who had been turned out as a young inmate in Angola, Louisiana's maximum security plantation prison, described to Wilbert Rideau, the doyen of jailhouse journalists, how officials actively supported the prison's slaveocracy:Everything and everybody in here worked to keep you a whore -- even the prison. If a whore went to the authorities, all they'd do is tell you that since you already a whore, they couldn't do nothing for you, and for you to go back to the dorm and settle down and be a good old lady. Hell, they'd even call the whore's old man up and tell him to take you back down and keep you quiet. . . the most you'd get out of complaining is some marriage counseling, with them talking to you and your old man to iron out your difficulties.19 A veteran corrections officer, also from Louisiana, described a similar situation:There are prison administrators who use inmate gangs to help manage the prison. Sex and human bodies become the coin of the realm. Is inmate "X" writing letters to the editor of the local newspaper and filing lawsuits? Or perhaps he threw urine or feces on an employee? "Well, Joe, you and Willie and Hank work him over, but be sure you don't break any bones and send him to the hospital. If you do a good job, I'll see that you get the blondest boy in the next shipment."20Lee Bowker, in his now somewhat dated book, devoted a whole chapter to documenting direct involvement by penitentiary staff and administrators in setting up, watching, and profiting from the rape of prisoners.21 Lockdown America : Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, Christian Parenti, 1999, p.186-187http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859847188/(Parenti describes similar widespread abuse of female prisoners as well.)"I understand some of the arguments surrounding marijuana, but frankly I just don't think we need to be advocating drug use of any kind," he said.Of course, when the kindly man of God in his gentleness (Galatians 5:22) attempts to gainsay this measure, he slyly accuses supporters of it of "advocating drug use."Criticism of anti-drug laws and so-called narcotics controls is often misinterpreted as approval or endorsement of drug use or drug addiction. Those who so interpret my position -- or any position of laissez faire and tolerance with respect to drug use -- do so because they implicitly subscribe to the principle that anyone who does not support their position supports their adversary's. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I regard tolerance with respect to drugs as wholly analogous to tolerance with respect to religion. To be sure, a Christian advocating religious tolerance at the height of the Inquisition would himself have been accused of heresy. Today, however, no one would misinterpret his position as an endorsement or advocacy of a non-Christian religion or of atheism. The fact that a contemporary American's, and especially physician's, advocacy of tolerance with respect to drugs is generally viewed as an endorsement or support of undisciplined licentiousness in the use of "dangerous drugs" signifies that we are now at the height of an "anti-narcotic" inquisition.Ceremonial Chemistry : The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers, Thomas Szasz (1973, revised 1885), p. 57http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556910193/ 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on September 18, 2000 at 14:08:36 PT:
Important E-Mail News!
Please encourage people to attend on Oct. 3, noon in Senate Park D.C. Rally and concert plus march to the US Supreme Court. I believe the presence of Medical Marijuana Patients and HIV positive folks will be an excellent addition to the cross-disability and civil rights community which plans to turn out.For more info, email me at: gracenichols hotmail.com I can send posters!Good info is listed on the http://www.bazelon.org/ site and also the http://www.tash.org/ site. It is a broad national coalition!If you have New York State activists who want to go, I want to fill buses, so have em call me at Grace Nichols of NYAPRS at 518-436-0008 x 16
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