Yesterday, I mailed off my absentee ballot, and my election guide arrived in the mail. You’d think they would send out election guides and absentee ballots together, rather than separately. Fortunately, I am capable of researching ballot measures and candidates without the election guide, and it was a pretty easy ballot to vote.

(Incidentally, California voters, I support “no” votes on 98/99, because I think that they are poorly written. While I do think that we need more protection from eminent domain seizure, these propositions are not the answer, and I believe that we need to tell Sacramento to try again, and to cram less garbage into the propositions next time.)

County-wide, there’s only one initiative, and that’s Measure B. It’s attracted quite a bit of attention lately, so I thought I’d take a moment to articulate my reasoning for voting no on it.

Before I do that, however, I suppose I should explain what Measure B is. Measure B is designed to repeal Measure G, Mendocino County’s medical marijuana law. Under Measure G, people who have a medical reason to use marijuana may grow up to 25 plants without reprisal. People who have prescriptions for medical marijuana can also basically contract the work out to other growers, which seems pretty sensible when a lot of people use medical marijuana because they are severely disabled.

However, marijuana is still illegal. While County officials do not prosecute small operations under Measure G, the Feds are more than welcome to do so, and you can still be arrested for cultivation, possession, and sale of marijuana. It’s a pretty classic example of a conflict between state’s rights and federal law, and that kind of thing gets me all tingly inside.

Measure B wants to end all that.

Now, I’m pretty ambivalent about medical marijuana. Honestly, I think it’s kind of a load of hooey, and that most people who use medical marijuana really just want an excuse to use recreational marijuana. However, there are some circumstances in which marijuana usage has clearly been beneficial to patients, suggesting that more serious research would be a good idea. There’s a lot of stigma around marijuana and its usage, and I suspect that I buy into some of that stigma, especially since I know a fair number of people with medical marijuana cards who are definitely not in need of therapeutic marijuana.

That aside, I think there are some good reasons for supporting medical marijuana initiatives.

For one thing, it sends a clear message to state and federal government that people in Mendocino County support the use of marijuana for certain medical conditions, which could in turn encourage actual, serious, empirical research on the topic. I’ve always said that if you don’t like a law, you should change it, and I think that initiatives like Measure G were a good way to start that change.

For another thing, prosecution of growers takes up a lot of energy. Measure G freed up county law enforcement like sheriff’s deputies to go after actual criminals, like people who brew meth in state parks. County, state, and federal officials continued to go after big-time grow operations under G, because these operations exceeded the amount permitted under measure G. But they weren’t going after grandmothers with a couple of plants in the back garden. And I think that’s a good thing. I think that we need to prioritize our law enforcement’s efforts, and in my mind meth is a far more serious problem than marijuana.

So for these two reasons, I am voting no on B, because I don’t want to repeal measure G. And I suspect that a lot of people in the county feel the same, including the sheriff, who has pretty much said that he is going to continue ignoring small grow operations to focus on more important issues. Now, he can’t come out and explicitly spell that out, of course, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s with me on this whole “prioritizing our efforts” thing. This county doesn’t have enough sheriff’s deputies as it is, and if we were to start going after everyone with weed in their gardens, it would turn into a nightmare.

Proponents of Measure B want us to think that the crime rate has gone up since G passed, and maybe it has. Honestly, I had some trouble tracking down good statistics, so I’ll take it at the word of the Measure B people that crime has, in fact, gone up.

However, correlation is not causation.

Since Measure G passed, Mendocino’s population has increased, which tends to lead to an increase in crime. Meth production and use has skyrocketed, and I think that’s a pretty big factor in crime statistics. The rate of untreated mental illness has also gone up, as has the rate of homelessness. All of these things are pretty major factors. Furthermore, there is a fomenting class war in Mendocino County, and anyone who doesn’t see that is a flaming idiot. I think that things are going to get ugly here, and soon, especially if the economy keeps going downhill, because there is some dramatic economic disparity going on here.

I have a pretty personal take on crime in Mendocino County, since my car was broken into and stripped in 2005. And what did the police say when they finally responded to my call? “Probably meth-heads.” When all the gas was siphoned from all the cars along my block a week later, it was also attributed to meth-heads. When one of my neighbors here had his garage broken into a few months ago, it turned out to be kids. (Not very bright ones, either, they ditched the loot in a neighbor’s yard.) Strangely enough, the topic of marijuana never came up.

Marijuana is related to crime, but not the small-potatoes, few plants in the garden marijuana that Measure G protects. The issue with marijuana is big league growers who trash state parks, deal huge amounts of the drug, and get into turf wars with each other, and, believe me, the sheriff is just as eager to get those guys as we are. But, as he points out, Measure B “would be a burden on law enforcement” which would ensure that the sheriff’s department “will not be able to focus on any other public safety issue.” Prosecution of small operations is just a waste of public resources, and given that this county doesn’t have enough money as it is, it makes me boiling mad to think of the things we need so much more than a few measly dope growers in jail. Like a fully staffed police force. Like new buildings for our schools. Like facilities to handle the homeless and mentally ill.

Passing Measure B is not going to make the crime rate decline. In fact, the crime rate will probably go up, because cultivation of small-scale gardens will get a lot more dangerous. If the sheriff is pressured into prosecuting such cases, the drug-related crime statistics in the county are going to skyrocket. And while he and his deputies are off chasing decrepit cancer patients, the meth-heads will be able to rule supreme in this County. Measure B is going to distract us from the very real issues we need to deal with, which makes it a pretty neat trick, if you ask me.

Personally, I’d rather have a few legitimate patients using medical marijuana, along with a large number of pretenders who just want a free license to smoke a doobie now and then. I think that the passage of Measure B could in fact create a situation where criminal elements like meth producers and dealers will perceive Mendocino County as a soft, easy target, because the sheriff’s energy will be focused on a relatively minor issue. I also suspect that Measure B is spearheaded by the same out-of-towners who are destroying every other aspect of this county and its character because they don’t like the reality of Mendocino County, they like the fictional wonderland they have constructed. And to them, I say: “go home or grow up.”

Note: On 13 May, the Mendocino County Sheriff announced that he was actually endorsing Measure B, claiming that it was “the right thing for the County.”