California’s annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting is underway again, and so is the debate over its effectiveness.

The photograph above was taken at a CAMP raid in Shasta County, which has become the county where the state marijuana eradication program is now most active. Sonoma County ranks sixth.

CAMP is a project of the California Attorney General's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. Spokeswoman Michelle Gregory says an increasing number of the pot growing operations they find are in hard-to-reach areas of the state. But not all of them.

Aaron Smith is the California Policy Director for the national Marijuana Policy Project. He says the state’s aggressive attempts to reduce marijuana growing have actually contributed to the spread of new and better financed farms into remote public lands in California.

Marijuana advocates have for years claimed that pot is California's biggest crop, and now cite govenment figures to support that claim. CAMP spokeswoman Gregory affirmed that much of California's cannabis is exported to other states. Surprisingly, Tennessee is reportedly the second leading pot producing state, far behind California.

The two tables below, as well as the graph above, are taken from the CAMP website.

Below, some of the marijuana plants shown in the earlier picture are loaded onto trucks to be taken away and destroyed. Photographs from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Exposure to toxic chemicals in our environment begins early in life--even before birth.

  Ken Cook, President and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, is a strong proponent for a Kids-Safe Chemical Act, to reduce children's exposure to toxics in the environment.

 Additional online resources from the Environmental Working Group  include the Shopper's Guide to Pesticides, and their Cosmetic Saftety database.

Click here to view Ken Cook's 20-minute video summary presentation on the 10 Americans  study.

The Environmental Working Group is also pressing for the creation of a human "toxome," similar to the genetic map known as the human genome, to identify where and how toxic chemicals affect the body's healthy biological processes.

Health Care reform and a forward-looking energy policy are not competing subjects in need of Congressional action, but interlocking national priorities, said speakers at a Santa Rosa rally yesterday.

Sebastopol City Council member Kathleen Shaffer (left), spoke out strongly in support of the health reform plan endorsed by President Obama, and the much maligned "public option" within it.

 Photos courtesy of John Hartong

Another speaker at the rally, Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo, defended proactive climate change legislation as a potential engine for economic, as well as environmental benefits.

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The Santa Rosa rally was one of many scheduled across the country yesterday by MoveOn.org.

Budget cuts resulting in faculty layoffs and reduced course offerings are inescapable at Sonoma State University for the coming year; the remaining question is where will the axe fall, and how deep will it cut.

The CFA's membership vote on the furlough question closed at 5 pm Wednesday. The balloting was conducted online, as a means of obtaining greater participation during the summer, when few faculty are on campus. Because this was the first time the union has held a web-based referendum, they are taking a little extra time to ensure the accuracy of the results before making the outcome public on Friday morning, when they'll be posted on the CFA website.

 How much difference can the outcome of the furlough vote make? As much as $3 million for the Sonoma campus alone, says Melinda Barnard, SSU's Vice Provost for Academic Affairs.

Even though the exact courses and faculty positions that will be cut due to the budget shortfall will not be decided for weeks to come, SSU Political Science professor Andy Merrifield (who is also a Regional Vice President for the California Faculty Association) predicts that the campus will be a markedly difference place by the start of next spring semester.