Pubdate: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 Source: Times-Standard (Eureka, CA) Copyright: 2014 Times-Standard Contact: http://www.times-standard.com/writeus Website: http://www.times-standard.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1051 POT PROHIBITION'S END HARDLY A PANACEA The reaction of local tribal leaders earlier this month to the latest memorandum from the Justice Department on marijuana enforcement illustrates an important point: However desirable the end of prohibition may be for the people of Humboldt County at large, it will not come without costs - decriminalizing cannabis cultivation improperly can wreak still more devastating damage on the environment. Leaders from the Yurok and Hoopa tribes took pains to remind the public at large of this following the Dec. 11 release of the Justice Department memo which allows individual tribes to grow and sell marijuana at their discretion and directs U.S. attorneys not to enforce federal marijuana laws on Native American reservations regardless of the state's regulation. No thanks, leaders of each tribe said, pointing to their own bans on marijuana. "It is not just about pot, it is about much more than that," Yurok Chairman Thomas O'Rourke Sr. told the Times-Standard. "It is about environment, it is about resources, it is about water, it is about an ecosystem, it is about the health of our people." Indeed, in a press release this summer announcing Operation Yurok, a joint tribal-state illegal grow eradication effort, the tribe laid out its case against illegal grows, which goes beyond simple trespassing: Water theft, destruction of the land and poisoning of the river and wildlife. "These illegal pot farms impact every aspect of life on the Reservation," O'Rourke said in the release. "What used to be done with a pitchfork and a shovel is now done with excavators and backhoes. We have to protect our water and we have to preserve our natural resources." While we have argued in favor of ending the prohibition on pot, attention must be paid to be environmental consequences. There's little to be gained by bringing the North Coast's pot industry into the light if the costs continue to be unfairly dumped on tribal or public land. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom