REDWOOD VALLEY The U.S. drug agents' vehicles rumbled past vineyards and cattle ranches, traversed winding roads through oak woodlands and cleared a gate marked with a sign: "Member, Mendocino Farm Bureau."
Camouflaged and heavily armed, Drug Enforcement Administration officers brought a battering ram to the door of Matthew Cohen and a chain saw to cut down his 99
marijuana plants earlier this month.
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.
