This letter is not about the military, but I noticed you were with the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam. I was with the 173rd Airborne in Afghanistan from 2005-2006 and in Iraq in 2007. It would be cool to talk soldier with you sometime, but my current battle is over the legalization of cannabis.

Many of my friends returning from war have medicinally benefited from cannabis to combat post traumatic stress disorder. Cannabis calms them down while alcohol has been known to intensify the problem, often leading to violence. Fortunately, Veterans Administration clinics will now allow the use of medical marijuana for veterans. You may have even seen some of your comrades return from Vietnam and end up as homeless alcoholics. As a wine vineyard owner, you should at least be concerned.

We need to tax, regulate and control cannabis. At the state level, there is a strong possibility that Proposition 19 (Tax Cannabis Act) will pass this November. Proposition 19 will give local city and county governments the authority to control commercial regulations of cannabis production and sale. Three Democrats (Miller, Lee, and Stark) representing Bay Area districts in Congress have already endorsed Proposition 19. I am aware that as of July 2010, you are still undecided on Proposition 19. You probably do not want to be known as the “weed congressman,” but in fact, that is what you are. You represent the nation’s largest cannabis producing region, but have yet to support a Proposition (19) that will benefit your district. Is it a coincidence that you are from Napa and have deep roots in the wine industry?

More tax money being spent to eradicate a plant that should be legal

The federal government’s uncompromising policy on cannabis is having an extremely destructive effect on our First Congressional District and Lake County in particular. In a November 2008 Drug Enforcement Administration news release, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) announced record-breaking seizures of marijuana from California public and private lands during CAMP season and Operation Green Acres 2, resulting in a record breaking combined total of 5,249,881 plants.

Lake County led with 499,508 marijuana plants eradicated, over 100,000 more plants than any other county in California. Mendocino and Humboldt are also counties in our First District, and also listed in the top five in plant seizures by county.

I’m not sure if you remember the 1960s sitcom “Green Acres,” but don’t you think it is distasteful to name a large-scale eradication operation after a satirical show poking fun at rural livelihood? One eradication operation can take a poor family’s entire annual income.

The issue of cannabis cultivation is dividing the local population of Lake County. An unnecessary drug war is being fought between aggressive police and cannabis cultivators. For example, on June 22 CAMP conducted an eradication operation just eight miles southeast of my father’s house in Lower Lake. A helicopter inserted the heavily armed eradication team into a cannabis cultivation site when they spotted a man armed with a rifle. The eradication team confronted the man at gunpoint and arrested him after a brief struggle. The eradication team recovered a semi-automatic rifle with a loaded magazine and additional ammunition. The man was booked on felony charges of cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and committing a felony while armed.

A week later, on June 29, Mendocino County deputy’s truck window was shot out following marijuana raid. Less than 24 hours after the truck window shooting, a man in a cannabis garden was shot and killed by a multiagency drug task force just north of Lake Berryessa. Paradoxically, the police and the cultivators are not to blame – failed policy is the problem.

Cannabis cultivation should be approached like any other agricultural product. Instead of carrying weapons in remote marijuana cultivation sites, cultivators could be employed by a company working a 9 to 5 job, following labor laws and being taxed like every other hard working citizen. This would significantly help Lake County’s high unemployment rate.

Lake County is cutting jobs at schools and hospitals, but in June our Board of Supervisors hastily approved a $550,000 grant for marijuana eradication when the grows are already months into season.

We should at least figure out a way to sell the eradicated plants to the local dispensaries. Revenue would come into the county and strengthen local small businesses and at the same time weaken the illegal grows that are trespassing on public and private property.

We need a system that is designed to reward those who are complying with laws. This system – capitalism – will solve our problems through a market economy. Cannabis will bring revenue into Lake County and other North Coast counties through a regulated legal marketplace. The market will effectively thwart criminal enterprises because they will no longer profit. These “criminals” will soon be sending applications to local businesses for employment; they won't have to bring guns to work.

Investing in local business will show people who are cultivating illegally that they are not making enough money camping out in the forest, eating canned beans and sleeping with their rifles. We need to turn cannabis cultivation into an efficient process.

On July 20 the Oakland City Council voted 5-2 in favor of a plan to license four production plants where cannabis would be grown, packaged and processed. What if Lake County exported cannabis to these production plants? Lake County already has a strong agricultural foundation with pears, walnuts and winegrapes. Cannabis is the largest cash crop in the state of California, it is an extremely lucrative product with high profit yields and it needs to be taxed.

Lake County also is an ideal location for the production of hemp, which is used for many industrial purposes such as nutritional food products, fiber, building materials, paper, fabric, cordage, animal bedding, anti-inflammatory medicine, water, and soil purification and fuel. Because of an irrational federal prohibition, the United States is foolishly the world’s largest importer of hemp.

Irrational policy is impeding the employment potential of Lake County. A huge percentage of people in Lake County already know how to grow cannabis, so let's have them do it legally and efficiently. Producing a quality cannabis product can foster a sense of pride in Lake County, or any other North Coast County.

Not everyone follows medical marijuana laws, or international border laws

A major problem with the medical marijuana laws is that those who abide by them are not as economically efficient as those who ignore them. The larger grows in the North Coast, often reaching tens of thousands of plants, are more profitable because of their ability to produce in mass quantity. The larger grows completely disregard medical marijuana laws and are often run by cartels based out of Mexico, but seasonally located in places like Lake County’s Mendocino National Forest.

However, simple economics tells us that these cartels would be unable to compete with the free market and local labor. Not only is Lake County being environmentally devastated with toxic chemicals, water diversion and other human produced waste from these grows, but our land also profits foreign criminal organizations.

The black market revenue from these grows is not being taxed, and it will not make it back into the local economy. Legalization and the market economy will force the Mexican cartels out of business. Lake County’s local government would then be able to regulate the environmental harm by setting up a system to monitor the large legal grows and make sure they meet environmental standards.

If you are interested in the social consequences of the legalization of cannabis, you may want to read this. It’s simple.

By legal definition, recreational cannabis users in the U.S. are criminals, and this ostracizes a significant percentage of the population. Being stationed in Europe for two years and having visited places where cannabis is decriminalized and regulated, I am convinced that the Dutch model is the most successful. The Dutch have approached the social consequences of cannabis from a health perspective, not a criminal one.

Despite the United States having some of the strictest cannabis laws in the world, we have the largest number of cannabis consumers. The percentage of our citizens who consume cannabis is double that of the percentage of people who consume cannabis in the Netherlands, a country where the selling and adult possession of cannabis is allowed.

Cannabis does not induce violent reactions. Alcohol is proven to induce violent reactions in some users. Cannabis is not as addictive as tobacco, alcohol, many prescription drugs, meth, cocaine, heroin, etc. According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), cannabis can be used for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, anorexia, AIDS, arthritis, cachexia, cancer, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV, migraine, multiple sclerosis, nausea, pain, spasticity, wasting syndrome. Many doctors believe that cannabis has many more medicinal benefits like treatment for insomnia, opioid dependence, and alcoholism.

Why is Napa County more prosperous than Lake County?

Why is it that vineyard owners are seen as sophisticated businessmen that bring revenue into the region, but at the same time the cannabis cultivators are portrayed as criminals that need to be eradicated?

In June the California Employment Development Department reported that Lake County’s unemployment rate was 17.1 percent. Lake County is down from 18.6 percent in April, but nowhere close to Napa’s comfortable 9.0 percent.

I wonder what Napa County would look like if the federal government had continued its 20th century alcohol prohibition? Let’s examine the alcohol prohibition, while not forgetting about the current cannabis prohibition.

The end of prohibition was the end of the criminal enterprises led by gangsters like Al Capone. The criminal enterprises were no longer profiting when they had to compete with the free market. Now, only legitimate corporations are profiting from alcohol and the illegal distilleries no longer exist. Now, only legitimate corporations are profiting from alcohol and the illegal distilleries no longer exist.

Cartels are not making wine in the Mendocino National Forest. Major support for repeal of the alcohol prohibition came from upstanding citizens that were not fond of the sale and consumption of alcohol. These sober citizens came to realize that the unintended consequences of prohibition were much worse than the social problems caused by alcohol.

Do you know which county made great gains after the alcohol prohibition? Napa County began to produce grapes for wine, and how much money was subsequently invested into their local economy?

Lake County is beautiful, has the cleanest air in the state and the people are very friendly. If you want, we could start a wine and weed tasting tour around Clear Lake. It would bring in tourism revenue. Even our largest tourist attraction, Konocti Harbor Resort, closed down last year. This is the first summer in my life it hasn’t been open. My father worked at the resort for over 25 years and I began working there at the age of 13 (below the legal employment age minimum) and continued to work there until the week before I shipped off to Army basic training.

I hate to bring politics into it

According to your Web site, “The heart and sole of the California wine industry lies within the boundaries of the First Congressional District. As a life-long resident of the Napa Valley, a former winery employee and a current winegrape grower, Congressman Thompson is acutely aware of the impact that the wine industry has on the First District and the state of California as well as the rest of the nation.”

Essentially, you are representing the alcohol industry in Congress. I have also heard your son is a deputy sheriff. I drink wine and like cops. I always select wine from Napa or Sonoma County, and Kendall Jackson is both my mom and my favorite wine. I am proud of our region’s spectacular wines.

But why can’t we have weed and wine? Maybe someone on the Congressional Wine Caucus could answer my question? You are a co-founder and co-chair, so maybe at the next event you could just clink your wine glass, call for a toast and explain to everyone why we need to legalize cannabis. Drunk politicians are very gullible. Or, maybe you could get the large pharmaceutical companies interested in this medicine called cannabis. The pharmaceutical industry would easily out-finance the alcohol and tobacco industry’s longstanding anti-marijuana campaign.

You are supporting medical marijuana at the federal level, and have already succeeded in 14 states. Let’s take it to the next level and support legalization. Now is the ideal time to stand strong on this issue. As Proposition 19 approaches, the federal government will be forced to take cannabis seriously.

Robert Schaerges is a student at UC Davis Law School and was born and raised in Lake County.

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