Mendocino Pot Raid Causes Stir Among California's Medical Marijuana Advocates

[DreamSmoker]

The raid on Cohen's Northstone Organics garden, which boasted of "farm direct" marijuana deliveries to medical users, has stoked a fierce debate over whether federal authorities sought to nullify California's most renowned local regulatory program for medical marijuana cultivation.

In Mendocino County and beyond, Cohen, 34, was applauded as a leader who worked with local officials to initiate a program in which the sheriff issues $50 per-plant zip ties, with serial numbers, to enforce 99-plant limits for growers with dispensary contracts or documentation that they serve medical marijuana patients.

In a county infamous for black market marijuana growing and trafficking – and distrust of the government – nearly 100 local pot farmers signed up for the oversight program in two years. They paid more than $8,000 in annual fees each to let the sheriff inspect their gardens, count their plants and enforce environmental standards and rules for fencing and security.

Other Northern California counties were looking to emulate the Mendocino County model. Now those efforts are in doubt. And locals fear the raid may send Mendocino's pot culture scurrying back to its illicit past.

"It's paranoia season up here right now," said Fran Harris, who with her husband, James Taylor Jones, runs a tie-dyed clothing store in the town of Laytonville and grows marijuana for medical users under the county-supervised program. "Matt (Cohen) may have been targeted to send a message. He was trying to promote doing it the right way. And the federal message is there is no right way."

Cohen, who helped organize a Mendocino medical marijuana trade association called MendoGrown, was the public face for local pot regulation. He was profiled in documentaries such as the PBS show "Frontline" and a special on Australian television.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/international-cannabis-news/155788-mendocino-pot-raid-causes-stir-among-californias-medical-marijuana-advocates.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. "Camouflaged and heavily armed, Drug Enforcement Administration officers brought a battering ram"

ka-CHING! Your tax dollars at work. ka-CHING! How much did this 'operation' cost? A Million dollars an hour? Two million dollars an hour? Better bring in some choppers. ka-CHING! Overtime pay, more vehicles, weapons ka-CHING! $$$$$$$$


Spare no expense! Save the public from pot smoking cancer grannies! The taxpayers will foot the bill! Wheeee!

Ka-CHING!


$$$$

:eyes:

[frylock]

5. drug enforcement administration? that's a local agency, right?

because the obama adminstration supports MMJ, or so i've read here.

[krabigirl]

8. lol

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Without marijuana money, Mendo collapes into depression...

they need it, and everyone there knows it.

[Uncle Joe]

3. But, but ,but

Obama supports beer and travel money for all Americans, so we have that going for us.

Thanks for the thread, Dreamsmoker

[rusty fender]

4. This a.m. Thom Hartmann called it Nixon's war on drugs,

but now it's Obama's war on drugs, big-time. Obama's war on a LEGAL drug meant to help people in pain. What a fucking joke he has become:(

[slackmaster]

6. AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Now I have that song stuck in my head.

Thanks a lot.

[Upton]

7. Has Gov. Brown said anything at all about this?

Or is he pulling a Chris Gregoire and not standing up for the citizens of the state that elected him?

[RainDog]

9. I saw a news segment on this program in Medicino

wish I could find it now.

the local sheriff, I think it was, and the growers were trying to bring some normalcy to the application of the law as it exists in CA.

that the feds chose this group, it seems to me, is a indication of a direct attack on state attempts to deal with laws their citizens have voted into place.

it also seems that anyone who has made him or herself a public figure is a target for attack. can't have anyone disputing the propaganda and showing they're ordinary citizens like the rest of us.