A Conversation with Humboldt County Sheriff Honsal About Why He Opposes Measure A

With just over a month before the March 5th election, the debate over Measure A in Humboldt County remains heated. After the Hoopa Tribe came out in support of the measure, the Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel and city councils of both Eureka and Arcata voiced their opposition to Measure A, along with the Trinidad Rancheria. Redwood News spoke with Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal about why he, too, is against Measure A.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal: I think it’s important for the public to realize that here in Humboldt County, we do not have a problem with the with the legal cannabis industry. We are leading the state when it comes to growing legal cannabis. We have a great land use ordinance. We have a great code enforcement team and our marijuana enforcement team works collectively with them. So our problem isn’t with the legal growers. So, we shouldn’t look at further regulating the legal grow industry. We should be still be focusing on the illegal industry and that’s what we’re doing and I think we’re making some huge impacts.

Lauren Brenner, Redwood News: And Measure A would not affect illegal growers at all, right?

Sheriff Honsal:  That’s correct. This is only regulating the legal growers and right now limiting the new applications to less than 10,000 square feet and makes no sense whatsoever. So we want to have a thriving legal marijuana industry. We want to incentivize those people from coming out of the illegal market into the legal market. we do not want to encourage our legal growers to start growing illegally again. And because a lot of those people went from the illegal market to the legal market, we don’t want to push them back. 

Lauren: So if people really do want to support farmers, local farmers when it comes to the March election, how in your opinion, should they vote?

Sheriff Honsal: They should not support Measure A. They should vote no on Measure A