Quarantine!

Quarantine - a word deserving of an exclamation point! 
No, it isn't me that needs quarantining.  I haven't got a case of galloping payaka, or anything for that matter.  The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is not interested in any ailment I may have contracted.  No, they are primarily concerned with the baby grapevines I just had delivered and whether such delivery harbours any plant or animal pests and diseases.  The CDFA uses quarantines to prevent unwanted heebie-jeebies from entering the state and also to prevent subsequent infestations within the state from spreading to new areas.  The Federal Government has already approved my resident-alien status, so the pests the CDFA are interested in are not of Liverpudlian origin.
The CDFA's quarantine guidelines are amongst some of the world's most stringent.  A measure of their effectiveness is that a large number of pests that have gained a foothold elsewhere have not established themselves in California; including the Colorado Potato Beetle, the Golden Nematode, the European Grapevine Moth and various (and sundry) exotic fruit flies.  To the grape-grower, the restrictive nature of the imposed quarantines can constitute major impediments to the general flow of viticulture.  Indeed, pests have helped define viticultural practices and vineyard management in this part of the globe.  To the government imposing them, the quarantines are the first line of defense against potentially devastating infestations of unwanted pests.  Let's face it, with the global nature of today's wine industry, (no more suitcase-clones, please), it would be all to easy, if there wasn't such an agricultural-watchdog as the CDFA,  to reek a pestilence-like havoc on unsuspecting California vineyard owners.  An old fashioned vineyard nemesis like phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae) would be the least of California's problems.
People laugh when I tell them Great Britain is rabies free.  "How quaint," they quip.
Quarantines work!!!