No Campaign Against Marijuana Planting?
...by Ed Denson
Things have come to a very odd turn indeed when citizens and Supervisors write to the State Assembly and ask that a long-standing law enforcement program by cancelled by taking away its money. Nevertheless, that is what is happening this year with the CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) program. So far Supervisors in three affected counties have spoken out against the program and citizens are preparing to fight it county by county as the Boards of Supervisors consider allowing CAMP to return in 1997.
How did a law enforcement program become so unpopular? CAMP has been heavy-handed, arrogant, unresponsive to local government, and a failure. It has taken years of abuse of the inhabitants of the CAMP-afflicted counties for discontent to turn into active resistance, and for individual's concerns to reach into the county government itself. I can only hope that law enforcement officials are asking themselves what they have done to bring things to this point.
"It's obvious that a 20-year effort to eradicate marijuana, which has cost millions of dollars, has been nothing but a publicity stunt." -- Supervisor John Pinches, Mendocino County
The background facts are probably known to everyone who lives in the affected counties. In brief: CAMP was set up in the early 1980s with a mission of eradicating marijuana cultivation in California. These were the Reagan years, and the program was essentially a propaganda tool for foreign policy in South America. Leaders there asked why they should destroy their societies and environments to fight drugs when the US was tolerating marijuana cultivation. To prove we were not hypocritical, the US started CAMP.
CAMP came in with a very strong military-like presence and a wartime mentality. Helicopter loads of camo-clad "troops" invaded the rural counties of California, and the troops acted like warriors. Property was destroyed, family pets killed, children's schools seized, and the usual restrictions on search and seizure were forgotten. Hundreds of incidents of civil rights violations occurred each year. At the same time, cultivation continued and prices for marijuana rose to record heights.
CLMP took the lead in a lawsuit (NORML v. Mullen) which restricted some of the worst civil rights excesses in the 1980s. It culminated in a consent decree in which, among other things, CAMP agreed to keep its helicopters 500 feet away from any person, vehicle or structure. In theory, CAMP and its progeny still observe this limit.
"Proposition 215, which allows for the cultivation of marijuana for medicinal purposes, will be a strong incentive for me to oppose COMMET funding this year. I believe there is a possibility we could get three votes (a majority) in opposition to accepting these funds..." -- Supervisor Charles Peterson, Mendocino County
CAMP was a state program more or less imposed upon the cash-poor rural counties. It is still debated each year almost as a jobs program by the Supervisors. The difficulties with a large government trying to impose its will on smaller ones became obvious in Vietnam. There we tried to have the native South Vietnamese army take over the war. Here, CAMP has tried to have the counties fight the war on drugs through a series of CAMP-controlled local groups. In Humboldt County it's MET (Marijuana Eradication Team); in Mendocino County, COMMET (County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team); and so forth.
"For the last two years I have voted against the use of the State's funding for the CAMP program in Santa Cruz County. The use of surveillance helicopters in the rural area is invasive, costly, a very great nuisance to those who live there, and of limited use. I intend to continue my opposition locally." -- Mardi Wormhoudt, Chair of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors
A difficulty with CAMP is that its effects are local but its control is in the State or Federal governments. All attempts at local control have failed, even to some extent the Federal Courts. Local groups have tried every means at their disposal to control CAMP's lawlessness. For instance in Humboldt County:
___we filed suit in Federal Court
___we brought together victims and law enforcement perpetrators to meet and talk things out
___demonstrations were held
___the sheriff was asked to control CAMP
___a new sheriff was elected who ran partially on the ticket of controlling CAMP
___a hotline for ongoing violations was set up between CLMP and law enforcement
___we brought a second suit
___the Board of Supervisors asked CAMP to account to them
___citizens asked the Board of Supervisors to refuse CAMP funding
___a major assault on the businesses and culture of Southern Humboldt County by law enforcement was
discovered and prevented
Similar actions occurred in Mendocino and Santa Cruz counties. The efforts were large but the effects on CAMP were small.
"My personal opinion of (CAMP) is it's a failure." -- Supervisor Roger Rodoni, Humboldt County
In 1996 California added Proposition 215 to its Constitution. State law now allows cultivation, possession and use of medical marijuana by patients and their caregivers. Law enforcement is uncertain how to proceed. It's a time when a careful and precise effort needs to be made by law enforcement. Careful and precise are not the hallmarks of the CAMP program. Seeming more and more like a dinosaur, the program's funds have been cut and its support eroding.
In 1997 a new approach to controlling CAMP excesses has emerged. Largely the brainchild of Dennis Peron, the medical marijuana activist from San Francisco, the idea was simple enough. Get citizens and Supervisors in the afflicted counties to write to the State and ask them to take the money that would be spent on CAMP this year, and spend it on meth lab enforcement instead.
There is some reason to believe this will work, strange as it sounds. The Democrats have control of the legislature again and Carole Migden, D-SF, is in a position to affect the disposition of funds. Letters should go to:
The Honorable Carole Migden
California State Assembly
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
asking her to defund CAMP and instead fund hard drug enforcement.
Notes
The Compassionate Use Act of 1996, now enshrined in the codes as Health and Safety Code 11362.5. This act was passed in an initative by the voters and therefore may only be altered by the voters.
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