The raid on Cohen's Northstone Organics garden, which boasted of "farm direct" marijuana deliveries to medical users, has stoked a fierce debate over whether federal authorities sought to nullify California's most renowned local regulatory program for medical marijuana cultivation.
In Mendocino County and beyond, Cohen, 34, was applauded as a leader who worked with local officials to initiate a program in which the sheriff issues $50 per-plant zip ties, with serial numbers, to enforce 99-plant limits for growers with dispensary contracts or documentation that they serve medical marijuana patients.
In a county infamous for black market marijuana growing and trafficking – and distrust of the government – nearly 100 local pot farmers signed up for the oversight program in two years. They paid more than $8,000 in annual fees each to let the sheriff inspect their gardens, count their plants and enforce environmental standards and rules for fencing and security.
Other Northern California counties were looking to emulate the Mendocino County model. Now those efforts are in doubt. And locals fear the raid may send Mendocino's pot culture scurrying back to its illicit past.
"It's paranoia season up here right now," said Fran Harris, who with her husband, James Taylor Jones, runs a tie-dyed clothing store in the town of Laytonville and grows marijuana for medical users under the county-supervised program. "Matt (Cohen) may have been targeted to send a message. He was trying to promote doing it the right way. And the federal message is there is no right way."
Cohen, who helped organize a Mendocino medical marijuana trade association called MendoGrown, was the public face for local pot regulation. He was profiled in documentaries such as the PBS show "Frontline" and a special on Australian television.
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