Blowing Smoke

A few weeks from now, Ted Eriksen, the Mendocino County, Calif., agricultural commissioner, will publish his annual crop report. It will be seriously in error--not for any lack of meticulousness on Eriksen's part, but because his bosses will not let him mention marijuana.

In last year's report, Eriksen matter-of-factly stated that pot patches provided far more farm income in Mendocino County--he estimated 1979's harvest at $90 million--than any other cultivated crop. Says Eriksen: "I thought it was a realistic thing to do." The county board of supervisors did not: when the smoke cleared, Eriksen had torn the offending page from every copy of his findings and promised never to report on m----a again. So this year, wine grapes will be called the county's biggest agricultural moneymaker. But that is a politician's pipe dream.

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