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- Written by: Ron Kiczenski
Measure P, The Freedom to Garden Human Rights Restoration Act, is about the responsibility to protect freedom and human rights here at home.
Unlike monarchy, communism, fascism or most other forms of government in existence, the primary stated purpose of the United States government, including county government, is to protect the naturally “endowed” “certain unalienable Rights” of “the People.”
What in the constitution protects your naturally endowed right to grow a carrot or tomato plant, etc., to feed and take care of yourself?
There are no specific protections guarding such rights. In the absence of specific language protecting your rights, and without a vote of the people, the corporately influenced government has assumed a God-like jurisdiction over the natural plants of earth and the result has been nothing short of disastrous.
Of course outlawing a natural plant inflates its value as illegal commerce, so where your fundamental human right to garden once existed, now there is prohibition-related crime, violence and environmental destruction.
While this erosion of your human rights has been the cornerstone of funding and profits for organized crime, it has also worked to deny all people of critically needed food, medicine, fiber and other problem-solving resources.
This act would substantially help stop crime and environmental destruction in our county by simply restoring your naturally endowed human right to grow and use the natural plants of earth for your own needs. This act would not protect anyone involved in commercial activities.
Denying your human rights has also laid the jurisdictional foundation for privately patenting genetically engineered plant life and has left all natural plant life legally unprotected from “GMO” cross pollination. Current law allows corporations to sue you for disparaging their rights if their patent protected pollen contaminates your garden.
This act creates standing to hold corporations legally liable if their genetically engineered patented organisms (GMOs) contaminate the natural heirloom plants in your garden through cross pollination.
This act specifically guards against individuals destroying the environment or creating a toxic public health risk.
This act is the only honest, reasonable and responsible solution being proposed anywhere in the United States concerning the ill-conceived, corporately influenced prohibitions on earth's natural plant life.
Our choices at the ballot box are almost always comparable to choosing between Budweiser or Coors or the lesser of two evils.
If you are a person who hasn't voted because you don't see how it makes any difference, then this measure is your chance to make a real difference and your vote counts not only here in Lake County, but your vote will be representing the many across this state, country and world who have felt or are feeling as you do.
This act appropriately engages the Ninth Amendment and the principal constitutional responsibility of “the People” to declare the “certain rights held by the people,” thereby seeking to bring current county law concerning gardening into consistency with the 14th Amendment and equal protection under the law for home gardeners in the unincorporated areas.
If you are currently serving or are a veteran, this fight for freedom at home needs your assistance. The already disparaged freedom to live and take care of yourself the best you can is part of what so many before us have sacrificed their all for. We continue to ask our young men and women to go fight and sacrifice to protect this thing we call freedom.
This act intends to honor our shared responsibility to all those who have answered the call and continue to sacrifice for freedom. Our children need us to secure these basic human rights for them and for all those who come after us.
Wholly restoring and protecting your naturally endowed right to garden would cripple organized crime and impose overdue accountability on corporations like Monsanto where current law provides none.
Please read Measure P, The Freedom to Garden Human Rights Restoration Act of 2014, and then please consider voting to restore and protect your human rights and responsibilities in November.
Ron Kiczenski lives in Lucerne, Calif., and is an author and proponent of Measure P, www.freedomtogardenact.org .
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- Written by: Ralph McComb
I would like to use this forum to thank the Lake County Sheriff's Office and the deputies of the Narcotics Task Force for their most recent efforts to eradicate thousands of pot plants in several different sites in the Lower Lake area where I own property.
Recognizing that beyond the unpredictable reactions of the people responsible for these grows, law enforcement officers face numerous dangers when accessing these locations in order to eradicate unlawful marijuana grows, including the lack of direct support by the neighbors of these illegal grows who may fear retaliation should they help.
I offer my most sincere appreciation for the hard work of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and its task force in protecting our beautiful Lake County and stopping the pollution to the environment and restoring a sense of peace and safety in our communities.
I am pleased that Measure N is working. In the upcoming election on Nov. 4, I hope that the voters of Lake County will support the efforts of our local sheriff's department and keep Measure N in effect by voting no on measures O and P.
Ralph McComb lives in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif.
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- Written by: Gary Schurdell
Residents of Lake County (not nonresidents) need to take a stand and not be intimidated by pressure, threats, violence, scare tactics, etcetera.
The truth is that in June of 2014 “We the People” of this county voted and passed Measure N, which was fair and balanced.
The people in this county who don’t like this measure and cannot accept it continue to badger our county board and the good law abiding citizens of this county.
The ones who are against the measure are like children who cannot accept the word “no” and keep throwing a fit until they get what they want. They cannot get what they want.
This inundation and exploitation of our county is destroying our ecosystem, our tourism, county appearance and our reputations.
All residents who are tired of this issue infecting all of our resources need to get out and vote in numbers to put a stop to this decay of our society and way of life in our communities.
The burden is on the legal voters of this county. You have part-time people coming in from all parts of the country to grow in our county. They say, “Look at the revenue it brings or could bring.” I would rather have clean revenue than drug revenue.
It is ironic that they do not want smoking, but they want to legalize marijuana smoking and use, the secondhand smoke from which is found to be bad for you.
Do you also want year around skunk smell? It’s bad enough there is a pungent smell at a certain time of the year.
You can drive around the county and see the areas that have become run down and trashed because of the drug element. There are certain areas that are worse than others. Does this look good to visitors that come here for vacation?
This schedule one drug has no place in our county, except for those few who medically need it. That does not mean you go to the doctor and tell him you have headaches, toe ache, stomach aches, anxiety or some other reason that you may come up with. Then you get a medical excuse to use this drug.
Medical users only need one to two plants for a whole year. According to the law they are exempt from prosecution. They can grow them inconspicuously without a large fence, which you know what is behind it, in most cases. It has no place in residential areas or near schools, parks, playgrounds and churches.
Patients with certain cancers, Agent Orange and some other rare medical conditions may need the medical part of the marijuana plant, which is the cannabidiol. The tetrahydrocannabinol in the plant is not a medical usage, other than getting a buzz or high.
You think having alcohol is bad in the community. What about allowing marijuana and alcohol to run rampant in your neighborhoods and communities.
If the drug groups get this passed our county will become much worse economically. We the people need to vote no on measures O and P, otherwise the drug growers will be able to grow anywhere they want, including next door to you, and anything they want to grow. This is including other schedule one drugs, not just marijuana.
Do you want this in our neighborhoods and communities? I surely don’t! How about you?
Money is the driving force around legalizing it and none of it truly helps our county. The medical part of it is an excuse in about 95 percent of the cases. They use the medical issue to hide behind and justify the real reason they want get it passed and legal.
Residents, use common sense and really think about what it will do to our county. No good will come of it.
As Measure N stands right now it has law enforcement power. If you vote yes on O or P it will negate all we have in Measure N and give free rein to all growers growing.
Take a stand and vote no on measures O and P in November and put a stop to this insanity.
Gary Schurdell lives in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Monica Rosenthal
Why am I voting no on Measure O?
Measure O would eliminate Lake County’s “family friendly” ambiance; it would destroy tourism and hospitality and bring the newly developing wine tourism industry to a halt; it would deter investors and developers from considering Lake County and it would reek havoc on our pristine environment and worsen the impact of nutrient loading in our Lake.
Measure O would change the face of Lake County forever.
I am not OK with that.
I am not OK with a regulation that would expose the children of Lake County to marijuana in their backyards, in their neighborhoods and in their communities.
I am not OK with putting the safety of local citizens at a greater risk from intimidation and violence and making it difficult for local residents to file complaints against nuisance marijuana growers.
I am not OK with the smell and odor or the excessive use of water. One plant uses 12 gallons per plant per day for six months, as stated by local cannabis grower Dave from Arizona who is promoting the “economics of cannabis cultivation” here in Lake County.
I am not interested in protecting the cannabis cultivation business of “out of county” growers who make a morally unethical choice to put profit over people.
Measure O, the “Medicinal Marijuana Control Act” pretends to care about the rights of individuals in need of medicinal marijuana, but Measure O is written by marijuana growing profiteers and guarantees huge profits for those seeking their fortune in cannabis cultivation in our Lake County.
No on Measure O is endorsed by the Lake County Deputy Sheriff's Association, the Lake County Farm Bureau and the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, and is supported by county officials, law enforcement and your good neighbors.
I urge you to join me in voting no on O. Let’s keep Lake County family friendly.
For more information visit www.protectourlakecounty.com .
Monica Rosenthal lives in Middletown, Calif., and is an officer of the newly formed Protect Our Lake County Committee to oppose measures O and P.