LAKE COUNTY - Lake County leads the way out of 34 counties in the record number of marijuana plants seized this harvest season. A grand total 314,603 plants were seized here under the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting program (CAMP), which is the largest law enforcement task force in the United States. Created in 1983, CAMP is a multi-agency law enforcement task force managed by the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and composed of more than 110 local, state and federal agencies organized expressly to eradicate illegal cannabis cultivation and trafficking in California. [continues 366 words]
American needs to end pot prohibition. Roughly, smoking marijuana is the combination of drinking a beer and smoking tobacco, both legal for adults. Every hour our profession spends chasing the suppliers of pot means we miss DUIs, rapists and other public safety threats. Even a high-ranking official of MADD I spoke to agrees that police time could be better spent. We have been at this pot war for 35 years and have nothing to show for it, except prisons full of the wrong people. Officer Howard J. Wooldridge, retired Member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Washington, D.C. [end]
I'm sure that many marijuana growers and sellers are thankful to the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) for the latest marijuana busts and others like it. Without operations like this, marijuana would be worth what other easy-to-grow weeds are worth very little. Thanks to the Drug Enforcement Administration and other so-called "drug warriors," the easy-to-grow weed is worth more than pure gold and completely tax free. Any marijuana growers, sellers or traffickers arrested will soon be replaced. They always are. Kirk Muse Mesa [end]
LAKEPORT -- Elucidating on the status of crime in the county, District Attorney Gary Luck covered areas that have improved and those that remain as follows: Gangs "We (Lake County law enforcement in total) identified gang activity and broke it up two or three years ago. We shut it down in the Lakeport and Kelseyville areas where there was a group of gang leaders trying to establish toeholds and recruit from our schools. Those leaders we were able to send off to prison with tough prosecution. They are coming out of prison now, but we have an eye out for their reappearing. We are ever vigilant in that area. We have some young individuals out there who are wannabes,' but we do not have organized gang activity and I don't see it taking hold." [continues 386 words]
LAKE COUNTY -- In September, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting program broke the one million plant barrier for the 2005 season, and as of Oct. 26, Lake County alone had eradicated 145,732 plants with 80,000 of those plants coming out of the National Forest. Last year Lake County had a record year by eradicating 85,000 pot plants, but they have far surpassed that this year, said Deputy Steve Brooks of the Lake County Sheriff's Office. [continues 821 words]
SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday signed a bill by Assemblywoman Patty Berg that makes it easier for cities and counties to maintain needle-exchange programs that fight the spread of AIDS and Hepatitis-C. "This bill very simply saves lives," said Berg, D-Eureka. "I'm very happy that it has been signed into law." Assembly Bill 547 will reduce red tape by eliminating a section of state law that requires cities and counties to declare a health emergency every two weeks in order to continue operating a needle-exchange program. [continues 280 words]
CLEARLAKE -- The Clearlake City Council passed an ordinance at its Thursday night meeting regulating the sale of products containing pseudoephedrine, a primary ingredient in the production of methamphetamine. The ordinance establishes criteria for over-the-counter sales of medications such as cold medicine containing the drug, which city leaders believe will help in the fight against illegal drugs. On Sept. 13, the county's board of supervisors passed a similar ordinance, the first of its kind in the state. The ordinance calls for behind-the-counter retail of products containing pseudoephedrine. It also imposes identification and logging requirements for customers purchasing the products. [continues 437 words]
CLEARLAKE OAKS -- Unclear documentation and what authorities allege was lack of compliance with state law led to the recent seizure of hundreds of marijuana plants. The Lake County Sheriff's Office arrested one person and confiscated more than 500 marijuana plants from a hilltop marijuana growing operation known as the Patient's Alliance in Clearlake Oaks Sept. 7. Michael Nilsen of Patient's Alliance said LCSO acted outside the law by arresting him and pulling out the plants, which he said belonged to 90 medical marijuana patients both inside and outside the county. He claims to have been "robbed at badgepoint." [continues 707 words]
Young people in Mendocino County have little trouble getting hold of marijuana and alcohol, and as they progress from middle school to high school there's less stigma attached to the use of drugs and alcohol among their peers. That's according to the 2005 Status Report on Children and Youth, released Tuesday to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. "Staggering" is the word used by Supervisor Jim Wattenburger when he saw a statistic in the report that indicates that between 1992 and 2003, the rate of arrest of young people between 12 and 17 for marijuana violations increased 323 percent. [continues 693 words]
That some Americans despise democracy is always disturbing. The letter writer from Lucerne who doesn't like the Compassionate Use Act Proposition 215 apparently prefers a system where expensive, inhumane and irrational prosecution and punishment are used instead of a more sensible approach. Voters in nine states have said enough is enough let the medicinal use of an ancient herb supersede the barbaric and stupid system that has failed because marijuana is not a dangerous, hallucinatory narcotic but a useful medicine for adults. [continues 67 words]
Public Hearing Scheduled For April 13 As medical marijuana proponents nationwide hold their breath in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling, the city of Ukiah is plunging ahead with a groundbreaking marijuana ordinance. The Ukiah Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed ordinance for April 13. That will bring renewed attention and scrutiny to the multifaceted law. Local lawmakers want to nudge pot growers into parts of the city specifically zoned for commercial activity. If the ordinance passes, backyard and other outdoor residential marijuana gardens would be illegal. [continues 575 words]
UPPER LAKE -- Eddy Lepp's attorney, Dennis Roberts, believes that a raid on Lepp's property and his arrest early Wednesday morning could have been a retaliatory action by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). "My reaction is that the arrest is vindictive, vindictive, vindictive," said Roberts, who pointed out a federal judge in San Francisco on Feb. 7 ordered the DEA to return personal property taken from Lepp's residence along with marijuana in a raid conducted last August. Lepp and Roberts say federal chief justice Marilyn Hall Patel, acting on a written motion by Roberts, had ordered federal government officials to appear in court to explain why they had not returned what Lepp described as "non exculpatory property." [continues 149 words]
UPPER LAKE -- Eddy Lepp, awaiting federal prosecution for growing marijuana, has reportedly begun a fast to protest the government's case against him. Lepp, free on bail after being arrested last August by officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was quoted in an e-mail saying that he intends to fast "until the charges are dropped and the government stops targeting me and my family. "For me this is both a spiritual and political action," Lepp stated. Lepp openly grew more than 30,000 marijuana plants on his 40-acre Upper Lake property before the DEA, aided by local law enforcement officials, destroyed it while placing him under arrest in mid-August. [continues 175 words]
Upper Lake -- Released on his own recognizance by federal authorities, medical marijuana grower Eddy Lepp returned to a full house and empty fields Thursday night. Lepp was in a San Francisco federal court Thursday. He was arraigned on charges that are presumed to be possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. "He has talked to an attorney (believed to be Dennis Robbie of Oakland) and they are processing him out of the Federal Court Building in San Francisco as we speak," Lepp's wife, Linda, told a Record-Bee reporter at the couple's Upper Lake home at about 5 p.m. Thursday. [continues 598 words]
UPPER LAKE - For Eddy Lepp, who claims to have the largest acreage of legally grown marijuana in the country, it was a bitter harvest Wednesday as Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers, assisted by Lake County Sheriff's deputies, destroyed 40 acres of plants and arrested him. Richard Meyer, a special agent and public information officer for the DEA's San Francisco office, placed the value of marijuana removed from Lepp's property, conservatively, at $80 million. Lepp will be formally charged probably for possession with intent to distribute before a U.S. Magistrate Court in San Francisco today. [continues 852 words]
UPPER LAKE - Quiet Upper Lake is fast becoming a town in turmoil. The pot, as they say, is on to boil. The "pot," they also say, is the reason. Medical marijuana cannabis being issued from the First and Main Street office of Dr. Milan Hopkins has a number of factions at odds: two separate groups of the town's Main Street merchants and the medical marijuana camp. The latter has been growing in Upper Lake. A cannabis store sits next to the post office. Another store sold cannabis pipes. [continues 1265 words]
GLENN COUNTY More than 8,900 marijuana plants were seized in a raid of an isolated area of Mendocino National Forest in Glenn County on Tuesday by a joint force of Forest Service law enforcement officers and the Glenn County Sheriff's Department Marijuana Eradication Team. Forest Service law enforcement officers were following up on information they had obtained regarding suspicious activity in the area. Acting on that information, the officers discovered a large marijuana garden while conducting a general search of the area. [continues 133 words]
