NEWS RELEASE - YES ON B COALITION - JUNE 20, 2008
The Yes on B Coalition has decided to stay together and continue working to reduce the harmful impacts of commercial marijuana. The Coalition plans to appear at a future Board of Supervisors meeting to propose strengthening the county's marijuana nuisance ordinance to make it more effective, according to Coalition member John McCowen.
"The final results confirm that the public wants to see effective action to stop the abuses of the commercial marijuana industry," said McCowen.
"We also want to monitor marijuana law enforcement in the future," said McCowen. The Coalition is asking all residents who make complaints to law enforcement about marijuana culivation to "copy" the Coalition with the same information so the handling of complaints can be monitored. A special contact phone number, 467-3636, has been established for this purpose. The Coalition can also be contacted by email at YesOnB@pacific.net, by U.S. mail at 759 S. State Street #114, Ukiah 95482, or at http://savemendocinocounty.blogspot.com
"We have told the world that Mendocino County is no longer the best place in the nation to grow commercial marijuana and we have told law enforcement that we support you in protecting us from the abuses of the commercial growers," said McCowen. "District Attorney Meredith Lintott and Sheriff Tom Allman have said that Measure B will give them a mandate to go after large growers and those who are endangering public safety, creating nuisances and harming the environment. That is the spirit in which Measure B was intended and we are confident that is how it will be enforced," according to McCowen.
Final results showed Measure B passed with a 52% majority voting in favor, but McCowen said the mandate for action on marijuana is even stronger than the final vote tally shows. "We are confident that a large majority is opposed to the abuses of the commercial marijuana industry. The opponents waged a massive campaign of deception and scare tactics funded by outside marijuana interests to try and trick people into thinking that Measure B wasn't the answer," said McCowen.
"The No on B campaign knew they could not win by defending commercial marijuana so they falsely claimed Measure B would deny sick people their medicine and put personal users and cancer patients in prison. They also claimed it would be a burden on law enforcement and do nothing about problem growers," said McCowen.
"The campaign against Measure B also featured six deceptive slate mailers that were intended to fool the voters into believing that law enforcement and the Democratic and Republican parties were opposed to Measure B," said McCowen.
"In addition to stealiing or defacing over 400 campaign signs, there are also indications that the opponents of Measure B tried to steal the election by committing widespread voter registration fraud," according to McCowen, who said the Coalition is looking into hundreds of questionable late registrations of people who were not previously living in Mendocino County, especially those associated with the marijuana industry.
McCowen said the late registrations were filled with violations including underage voters, missing or false residence address and other indications of fraud. "We think they registered here just to vote against Measure B," said McCowen. "We are grateful to the voters who were not fooled but they need to stay involved to insure that Measure B is effectively implemented," said McCowen
