In our opinion Ukiah City Council should endorse Measure B too

Ukiah Daily Journal Staff
Article Last Updated: 04/14/2008 08:44:31 AM PDT

Ukiah City Council should endorse Measure B too

Opponents of Measure B, tacitly acknowledging its popularity with voters, are trying anything they can now to keep it off the June ballot.

Two lawsuits have been filed in an attempt to nitpick the ballot measure's legality, attempts we believe will fail.

These courtroom contests show that the opponents of Measure B - which will repeal Measure G and give Mendocino County medical marijuana patients the medicine they need and protection from prosecution under the state's medical marijuana law - are having a hard time coming up with good reasons why the voters should oppose it unless they agree that uncontrolled commercial marijuana growing is a good thing.

They also can't find any good reason why the voters shouldn't be given a chance to change their minds, eight years after Measure G was passed, about an experiment in marijuana decriminalization that has gone very wrong.

All Measure G, passed in the year 2000, has done is serve as a magnet for marijuana growers and dealers from all over the country to our rural county to grow as much pot as they can and cash in.

That is why the city councils of Fort Bragg and Willits have whole heartedly endorsed Measure B. They have seen the problems in local neighborhoods where home invasions are on the rise, and they see too many armed camps with vicious dogs springing up where quiet, safe rural neighborhoods used to exist.

We hope the Ukiah City Council - whose members have unanimously endorsed Measure B individually - will also vote as a group this week to make it clear that they too are fed up with the excesses of Measure G.

Don't let the opponents of Measure B fool you. This is not and never has been about medical marijuana. Measure B supporters are compassionate people. They just want their county back.