Pubdate: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 Source: Ukiah Daily Journal, The (CA) Copyright: 2008 The Ukiah Daily Journal Contact: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/feedback Website: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/581 Author: Linda Carricaburu Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/source/Ukiah+Daily+Journal MARIJUANA DRIVES THE COUNTY To the Editor: I would like to cancel my subscription to your newspaper because I am no longer willing to support the editor KC. Meadows and her political views. KC.'s use of the highly visible newspaper to skew the facts and the reality of marijuana in our county according to her opinion and agenda is an unfortunate misuse of her position as information purveyor for our community. The facts are that if marijuana cultivation was not so prevalent in our community, we wouldn't have much of a community at all. Marijuana cultivation is what has allowed this county to stay afloat after the collapse of the logging industry. It has kept the small businesses going in our beautiful downtown areas. It is estimated by many of the small businesses and store owners in the downtown Ukiah that roughly 60 percent to 70 percent of the sales made by them are to cash carrying buyers who are obviously part of the cultivation community in Mendocino County. The majority of these people are peaceful, loving families working hard to survive in a county that ranks 12th from the bottom in median income among the 58 California counties. It seems to me that KC. Meadows is lobbying against the very people that are allowing her to continue to have a job. It is no secret that the federal government has suppressed sound scientific studies from all over the world (including U.S. institutions like UCLA) regarding the benefits of marijuana so they can continue to demonize it and its users in order to suppress any threat to major industries such as tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical, the federally subsidizes eradication and forfeiture organizations, and the private prison industry to name a few. All one has to do is read about the origins of the marijuana prohibition to realize that our government was and still is lying to the American people, ignoring factual studies and court orders so that certain large industries that marijuana competes with can continue to make huge profits. I find it interesting that most of the vineyards in the county supported the YES on B Coalition. Afraid of competition? Perhaps. I also find it disturbing that KC. and the rest of the anti-marijuana contingency looks so harshly on the isolated incidences in which a violent crime is perpetrated involving marijuana, when in K.C.'s very own paper there is a daily list of people creating huge threats to our community by driving under the influence of alcohol. No one seems to bat an eye at the massive number of people creating alcohol induced death machines. It's mathematical fact that the annual rate of deaths from alcohol outnumber the deaths from marijuana by well over 100,000. Less than 1 percent of the county's 40,000 plus emergency calls placed to 911 were marijuana related. How many were alcohol related? Maybe those numbers should be looked at too. Marijuana makes people calm and peaceful, alcohol makes people violent and belligerent with a serious lapse in judgment. Who are the real demons here? The vineyards that clear cut thousands of acres of oak trees (all one has to do is fly over the Ukiah Valley to see the huge areas oak trees that have been cut down and replaced with vineyards), blanket these 1000's of acres with commercial-grade pesticides, add relatively few, mostly low paying immigrant type jobs to our economy, and which contribute to drunk driving, domestic violence, and a portion of that 100,000 plus annual deaths, or the majority of the people in our county who grow 25 to 100 plants on their own property without chopping down a ton of trees, without polluting the ground and air with commercial-grade pesticides to grow a product that makes people calm and peaceful? Marijuana directly contributes to less than 20 deaths per year. The math is simple, over 100,000 annual deaths linked directly to alcohol (I'm not even including 200,000 plus tobacco deaths) to less than 20 annual deaths linked directly to marijuana. The economics of marijuana cultivation in our county has allowed most of us to be able to continue to live here despite the lack of good paying jobs. It has fueled the latest real estate boom. There are very few ways that people in our county can earn enough money to afford a home or some land, yet property values appreciated handsomely over the last five years due to Mendocino County's position in regards to Prop 215. The property values have also remained relatively steady in comparison to the rest of the country during the current real estate fall out (land prices have hardly dropped at all). It has supported all of the real estate agents, escrow companies, appraisers, banks, construction and construction supply companies, the clothing stores, restaurants, car dealers, doctors, chiropractors, dentists, charter schools, teachers and just about every service offered in our county. Even your newspaper, it's reporters, and delivery people. All of this from the relatively small Ma and Pa growers (medical or not). Who says the money doesn't stay in our county? It sustains our county. True, the mega-large commercial growers have no place in our county nor in our forests. We need to focus our resources on dealing with those people, not the people who are truly part of our community and contribute to the lifeblood of our economy. The last fact that I would like to point out is that even though the Yes on B Coalition thinks that it has a majority in our county (a rather slim one at that), their majority is of the people who vote. It is no secret that a majority of marijuana cultivators have apprehension to getting "on the radar" by registering to vote out of fear of our federal government and its draconian policies that defy common sense. So K. C., please stop kidding yourself. While you may feel that you represent the majority of our county with your registered voters, your development and wine industries flying above the radar, the true majority in this county are the ones who make and spend their dollars here and keep this county alive. The selective spending of dollars is most effective voting mechanism possible and therefore I will no longer vote for your newspaper or your opinions. I am canceling my subscription to the Ukiah Daily Journal. It is my hope that you will realize who pays your bills and stop shooting yourself and the rest of our county's small businesses (including the law enforcement officers) in the foot and start working constructively to harness the potential tax dollars of our county's economic lifeblood. I encourage others to use their spending habits to cast their vote too. Linda Carricaburu Ukiah Editor's response: Sorry to see you go. Clearly you were an avid reader. You can still read the Daily Journal on-line for free at www.ukiahdailyjournal.com - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake