Pubdate: Wed, 25 May 2016
Source: Ukiah Daily Journal, The (CA)
Copyright: 2016 The Ukiah Daily Journal
Contact: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/feedback
Website: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/581
Author: Javier Garcia

OPINIONS FROM JAIL

To the Editor:

Why does it fee like Mendocino County is getting left behind in the 
marijuana industry we helped create.

I think it's time the local police and sheriff stop preying on local 
marijuana growers for the money in confiscating land, homes, 
vehicles, cash, etc. Which is obviously what's going on, since we 
hold second place in drug related confiscations in the state, first 
being L.A. County. Our dollar value of confiscations is not far 
behind L.A. County and they have multiple millions of residents, 
where Mendocino County only has a couple hundred thousand residents.

We need to embrace the pot industry if we don't want to get left 
behind, just so crooked local law officers can line their pockets 
with extra cash. The Mendocino County police force continues to grow 
by filling residents heads with nonsense about how they are not safe 
because of gang violence, we have no higher gang violence ratio then 
any county in California. Our gang violence is so low, we don't even 
have to mix gang members with the general population in the county 
jail. We have enough single cells for them in our tiny jail. Why we 
need to spend millions on a new court house to sentence more people 
to an over populated out dated jail is beyond me. Tom Allman seems 
very far from a hero to me, with his mental health outreach.

Our county jail is full of mentally ill inmates who need help, not 
long prison sentences and a lock down cell to themselves for 47 out 
of every 48 hours at the jail. While our local sex offenders and 
child molesters are free to roam their very own module. Our sexual 
offenders and child molesters out number our gang members. Which 
leaves me to believe we need to spend more time making sure our women 
and children are safe from sexual offenders who obviously have mental 
issues and meth addictions, and might not be doing time for offences 
that probably would not have happened if our hero Allman was actually 
doing what he says and getting the mental health situation under control.

He would probably be too busy to be raiding pot farmers and we would 
be passing laws and regulations to help our economy and marijuana 
industry flourish, which would bring millions in tax money and 
provide hundreds of jobs, that would help reduce our homeless 
population, so tourists won't shy away from our county. Or maybe I'm 
just crazy and should seek Tom's award winning mental health outreach.

- - Javier Garcia, Mendocino County Jail
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom