Pubdate: Tue, 28 Oct 2008
Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA)
Copyright: 2008 Record Searchlight
Contact:  http://www.redding.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/360

TRINITY COUNTY SEES A BACKLASH AGAINST GROWERS

Our view: The problem isn't medical marijuana itself,  but growers who
flock to tolerant counties to raise a lucrative crop.

Tolerance has its limits, and Trinity County may have reached
them.

Prompted by residents' complaints about an explosion in  gray-market
commercial marijuana growing, the Trinity  County supervisors this
afternoon will discuss revising  or repealing lax local ordinances
that they approved  just last fall.

The current county rules allow patients with a doctor's
recommendation to have up to 3 pounds of processed  marijuana and as
many as 12 mature plants, well above  the state minimum of 8 ounces
and six plants. If that  only meant cancer patients had an adequate
supply to  keep their nausea in check, it's hard to imagine anyone
complaining.

But many residents argue that the county has  experienced toxic
side-effects from the official  tolerance.

Commercial growers have moved into the county to take  advantage of
the loose laws (and, to be sure, the  remote country and light
law-enforcement presence).  Tall fences, guns and vicious dogs protect
valuable  crops. The pungent aroma of marijuana plots blows right
into school playgrounds. Easy money lures young people  into the
quasi-legal drug trade. The lumber mill has a  harder time finding
drug-free employees. It's changing  the fabric of society -- and not
for the better.

Marijuana growing is hardly a new phenomenon in Trinity  County, but
it's become far more prevalent and overt.  No less an authority than
High Times magazine -- the  Newsweek of the pot world -- reported this
summer that  the county has seen "an enormous increase."

The problem isn't medical marijuana in itself, but  growers flocking
to tolerant jurisdictions so they can  raise what remains a generally
illegal and thus  lucrative crop. And Trinity County isn't the first
area  to see a backlash. Amid a similar flood of commercial  growing
operations, voters in the hippie haven of  Mendocino County tightened
their local limits via a  ballot measure this June.

Few Californians object to bona-fide medical use by the  seriously
ill, but as long as shady pot growers exploit  laws passed in the name
of helping the sick, local  governments will keep deciding that
compassion is just  too much trouble.
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MAP posted-by: dan