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OUR NEW PROHIBITION

Illegal marijuana grow sites continue to thrive in our national forests because recreational marijuana use, although against the law, just doesn't seem to go away.  Think of it as prohibition for the new millennium.  Instead of backwoods stills producing alcohol, we have hidden gardens producing pot.

This, of course, has been going on for decades, but it wasn't until our ongoing drought that it became a more serious problem.  Cannabis plants require lots of water and, generally, this water is diverted from rivers and streams.  We all feel the impact of that ...  some much more directly than others.  Water sources may run dry by fall for 200 families on the Yurok Indian reservation in Humboldt County due to growers diverting water for pot farms.

Water diversion isn't the only distasteful aspect of these farms.  The criminal element guarding the grows can put a damper on a family hiking experience.  Native plants are clear-cut to make room.  Rat poison, used to protect young plants, is a danger to wildlife.  Pesticides damage the environment.  Tons of trash is left behind by the growers.

U.S.  Rep.  Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, is lobbying for more federal funds to add manpower, and presumably weaponry, to "defend our national lands." We've thrown money at this problem for years, but because the forest lands are so massive, and the growers so good at what they do, there has been no discernible drop off of marijuana availability ...  or so I'm told.  An old Bloom County comic strip showed the feds confiscating 1 percent of the nation's marijuana crop.  The result? The cost of marijuana went up 1 percent.

Since 2010, California voters have had the opportunity to stop this destruction by legalizing marijuana for recreational use, but have chosen not to, even though polls indicated legalization was favored by a majority.

Had recreational marijuana legalization become law in our state, there would be no need for illegal grows ...  anywhere.  The last I heard, there will be no legalization measure on our November ballot.  That's a shame, because with the way the law has been implemented in Colorado and Washington, with mostly positive results, I think voters are ready to say yes, not just in the polls, but at the ballot box.

Legalize recreational marijuana ...  and leave policing the forests to the Forest Rangers.

Michael J.  Haworth /Vallejo