Marin County Bans Biotech Crops

Marin County Bans Biotech Crops
LISA LEFF
Associated Press
Nov. 03, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO - Going easy on prostitution didn't go over well in Berkeley, but easing up on marijuana smokers was just fine in Oakland.

Condemning the war in Iraq was an obvious choice for many San Franciscans, but they were less certain about allowing non-citizens to elect school board members.

In Marin County, wine and cheese lovers decided to ban genetically modified crops, while voters in three other counties decided differently. These and other social experiments filled ballots in Northern California.

Berkeley's prostitution measure, which sparked fierce debate in a city known for its live-and-let-live values, lost with just 36 percent support with 93 percent of precincts reporting. Measure Q was opposed by city leaders who argued that ordering police to go easy on prostitutes would cause them to proliferate on Berkeley streets.

A similar effort to set police priorities in Oakland would make marijuana possession the lowest enforcement priority. With all precincts reporting, Measure Z, which also would require the local government to develop a plan for licensing and taxing the sale, use and cultivation of pot for private use, was leading with 64 percent support.

It wasn't quite clear if a third try would be a charm for a tax measure aimed at raising $20 million for more police officers and anti-violence programs in crime-scarred Oakland. Measure Y, which needed a two-thirds majority to win, had 70 percent support. Other public safety taxes failed in recent years.

In San Francisco, voters put the city on record with a rebuke of President Bush's foreign policy with a resolution urging an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Measure N won 63 percent to 37 percent with all precincts reporting.

San Francisco were narrowly opposed to a measure giving non-citizens the right to vote in school board elections. Measure F had 49 percent of the vote with all precincts reporting.

Months after Mendocino County voters passed the nation's first ban of genetically modified crops, voters in Humboldt, San Luis Obispo and Butte counties rejected similar ballot measures Tuesday. Meanwhile, voters in Marin County approved their own ban by a 61-39 percent margin.

The Humboldt County loss was expected because supporters dropped their campaign after complaints that the ballot language contained inaccurate scientific descriptions and also called for the jailing of farmers growing genetically modified crops. With all precincts reporting, the Humboldt measure lost 65 percent to 35 percent.

With all precincts in San Luis Obispo County reporting, that measure lost 59-41 percent.

"Farmers can't be handcuffed with something that is available everywhere but here," said Tom Ikeda, president of the San Luis Obispo County Farm Bureau.

With 79 percent of precincts reporting, Butte County's biotech ban was losing 61-39 percent.

The measures were placed on their respective ballots after Mendocino voters approved the first such ban in March, despite the biotechnology industry spending more than $600,000 in a failed attempt to defeat it.

The industry's presence in the four counties was almost nonexistent this election, leaving fund raising and organized opposition to local farmers.

The biotech industry argues that such local measures are bad public policy, creating a hodgepodge of red tape in an area already tightly regulated by the federal government.

Supporters argue that biotech crops pose incalculable risks to human health and the environment - contentions the industry strongly disputes.

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AP Biotechnology Writer Paul Elias contributed to this story from San Francisco.