Article: Marijuana, Let’s Get Real!

[Ernieman]

By Ernieman
WaccoBB.net

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-02-28_11-49-33.pngPeople have asked “Killed over marijuana?” Recently, there has been little good news with home invasions, grow fires, transport stops on the 101 corridor and the triple homicide in my neighborhood (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130206/ARTICLES/130209739/0/search) in an apparent pot sale gone badly. Three people killed by a driver who saw an opportunity to cash in on a million dollars. A big deal with maybe 200 pounds of pot as well as $500,000 cash rumored to be involved. Rumor yes, but probably ball park. As I write this the Sonoma County’s Sheriff’s Department has made an arrest. We all hope the shooter is brought to justice, but tears and fears will linger. Illegal drugs have always attracted violence and will because of the big money.

The Emerald Triangle is pretty well known in Humboldt County and Mendocino is pot-eccentric. Quietly, the pot scene in Sonoma County probably rivals the two. In Sonoma, I have heard on many lips, the total underground economic value of marijuana probably rivals the total economic value of wine. For a while, Mendocino County reported an estimated value of marijuana in the Agricultural Crop Report of the County. Present value is debatable since it is underground and hence unknown. The total economy of the County of Sonoma would suffer if the pot crop failed. Certainly, there would be a huge negative West County impact.

The market for marijuana took a drastic hit a few years ago as a glut came over the industry. Why? Humboldt, Mendocino and Sonoma have over-produced to the point of saturation. A few years ago a pound of marijuana was in the $4,000 neighborhood and today it is in the $1,000 neighborhood. The market has changed. I am told a pound is worth $6,000 in New York. What used to be a local market has essentially become a coast to coast market. The amounts of marijuana moving around must be immense. We’ll not know until we bring this discussion out of the dark and begin to really tackle the issue.

It is true that more potent and varied strains of marijuana have been produced on the North Coast. I was told a story of a local grower who went to Amsterdam to get the latest designer seeds only to find they were from Sonoma County origin. Probably true that more youth smoke marijuana here than other places. I estimate that 30% of our local populace occasionally uses marijuana. Most get their first marijuana from their parent’s stash and not some cartel. It is recognized that smoking too much marijuana, smoking at an early age, or combining alcohol and other drugs is bad. The point however is that it is hard to deny so many people something they want.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-02-28_11-59-02.pngHow did marijuana usage get to be so widespread? The Sixties are documented. The major factor that spread marijuana was the returning Vietnam War Veterans. Marijuana was widely used during Vietnam and returning veterans kept up the practice when returning home. Most returning Vets were drafted from all parts of the Country. Unwittingly, the government spread the popularity of drugs by drafting young people and sending them to a stressful and dangerous place where drugs were plentiful. An unintended consequence was marijuana use was brought home and spread wide. It hasn’t stopped.

Some think we are in that period right before alcohol prohibition ended. Right before it’s going to be legalized or decriminalized. The other opinion is that it only takes one McCain to go the other way. I believe the marijuana genie is out of the bottle and you can’t put it back. You can’t put it back without severe repression and repression is undemocratic, expensive, and solves nothing. People are ready for the de-criminalization of marijuana. It makes no sense to arrest more people and to have stricter laws. That just leads to more government costs and ruins more lives without solving any problem. Marijuana goes more underground, more repression, and we’ve been through all this before. That is the definition of folly.

The recent Board of Supervisors Ad Hoc Committee made some good points about growers and turning rentals into grow houses. I would not want that to happen to my property. So, adopt the appropriate Ordinance and impose penalties. Or, encourage that we use the existing laws to protect landlords from property damage due to irresponsible growing practices. Growers denying access to the public on public trails and land is flat wrong. Environmental damage of large scale grows is bad news. I am tempted here to detail the habitat problem from all the acres sanitized for grape growing where there is little crying of foul.

The Medicinal Marijuana patients are a group dependent upon marijuana for medicinal benefits. They are exempt from these comments as such but it should be noted there is a system developed to dispense marijuana to the qualified. I have supported Medicinal Marijuana and leaving the rules intact because these folks need the rules to protect their rights including the number of plants. I go further in supporting the decriminalization of marijuana because of social injustice. There are too many people of color, youth, and poor people in jail for marijuana use.

Some people become desperados because of drugs; we understand that. Illegal drugs are corrupting to police (See” The French Connection”), governments (See Mexico), individuals, and even in local pot deals. We need to move away from folly that thinks we can sustain a repression of something so many people want and two, has so much underground money involved.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-02-28_12-02-41.pngWhat to do? Firstly to all the young men out there who believe they are invincible, pay attention to Ross Station Road. There is greed in pot dealing like elsewhere. A new Al Capone will show up. People have proven that they will kill for a bag of cash. To law enforcement, you can’t suppress something that 30% of the people want to do. I have also heard rumors that young home-grown Sonoma County men are arming themselves for protection. I hope not. You can’t go in this direction or you too will spend your life in prison. It’s a given.

To Sonoma County, don’t become Draconian because you have discovered the problem. We don’t want to wreck more lives of young people and minorities by rounding them up and prosecuting them. For growing and possession, those with money get out and those without go to jail. So, there is a reason that California prisons have a disproportionate number of minorities and youth convicted of non-violent pot crimes.

Ma and Pa need to deal with this in the open with the children in a realistic fashion. That does not include putting your head in the sand or being super punitive. Have a problem? Call Social Advocates for Youth or seek help if you can’t talk to your kids.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-02-28_12-11-00.pngThere was a 20,000 vote plurality to legalize marijuana (Prop. 19) in 2010 in Sonoma County. There was a 62,000 plurality supporting compassionate care in 1996. A third of the states have now allow medicinal marijuana, two states have legalized recreational use, and one state is pushing hard right now to legalize industrial hemp, a strain of marijuana that has no psychoactive substances but is used in thousands of industrial products. The citizens are on the right track but government is slow to follow. It is the only answer unless we want to go the recent way of Egypt and follow the trail of suppression. I say, let’s take the criminal out of marijuana, legalize it, and let people have what they want, tax the growers, and move on to solving more substantial problems. No one should be killed for marijuana. We have created the shadow culture? We can bring it back to light. It is time for marijuana to be legalized.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-01-13_1639.pngErnie Carpenter has lived in Sonoma County since 1969. He has an MSW (LCSW) from UC Berkeley. He has served on the Sonoma County Planning Commission, the Board of Supervisors (16-years) and the Civil Service Commission. He has been involved in environmental, social justice, social work, planning, waste and recycling issue. He lives in the Graton area and has grown children, Currently employed as a waste consultant.

[Bryan]

Thank you Ernie for your article.

I feel that the best way to legalize pot is to 2 steps:

1) eliminate all possession/use laws for 21 and over.

then

2) we should make simple possession/use of pot during the commission of an actual crime an enhancement at penalty phase.

If people REALLY are afraid of pot smokers hurting other people, then that means we should add on penalties during robberies, thefts, etc. But eliminate the laws against simple use since the MAIN problem appears getting people off the couch and to put down the dang chocolate! :wink: We need an approach that will work in conservative states as well as liberal, and this approach should satisfy all concerned.

[Braggi]

First, a quibble. You said "one state is pushing hard to legalize industrial hemp ..." There's a little more interest than that:


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To date, thirty-one states have introduced pro-hemp legislation and ninenteen have passed pro-hemp legislation.

Eight states (Colorado (https://www.votehemp.com/state/colorado.html), Maine (https://www.votehemp.com/state/maine.html), Montana (https://www.votehemp.com/state/montana.html), North Dakota (https://www.votehemp.com/state/north_dakota.html), Oregon (https://www.votehemp.com/state/oregon.html), Vermont (https://www.votehemp.com/state/vermont.html), Washington (https://www.votehemp.com/state/washington.html), andWest Virginia (https://www.votehemp.com/state/west_virginia.html)) have defined industrial hemp as distinct and removed barriers to its production.

Three states (Hawaii (https://www.votehemp.com/state/hawaii.html), Kentucky (https://www.votehemp.com/state/kentucky.html), and Maryland (https://www.votehemp.com/state/maryland.html)) have passed bills creating commissions or authorizing research.

Nine states have passed hemp resolutions: California (https://www.votehemp.com/state/california.html), Colorado (https://www.votehemp.com/state/colorado.html), Illinois (https://www.votehemp.com/state/illinois.html), Montana (https://www.votehemp.com/state/montana.html), New Hampshire (https://www.votehemp.com/state/new_hampshire.html), New Mexico (https://www.votehemp.com/state/new_mexico.html), North Dakota (https://www.votehemp.com/state/north_dakota.html), Vermont (https://www.votehemp.com/state/vermont.html) and Virginia (https://www.votehemp.com/state/virginia.html).

Eight states have passed hemp study bills: Arkansas (https://www.votehemp.com/state/arkansas.html), Illinois (https://www.votehemp.com/state/illinois.html), Maine (https://www.votehemp.com/state/maine.html), Minnesota (https://www.votehemp.com/state/minnesota.html), New Mexico (https://www.votehemp.com/state/new_mexico.html), North Carolina (https://www.votehemp.com/state/north_carolina.html), North Dakota (https://www.votehemp.com/state/north_dakota.html), and Vermont (https://www.votehemp.com/state/vermont.html). Many other states have done studies without legislative directive. A complete list of state study bill legislation and state studies may be found on our Study Bill (https://www.votehemp.com/study.html) page."


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https://www.votehemp.com/state.html

[keb]

Ernie, while I agree with much of what you say regarding de-criminalizing marijuana I think there is another shadow element, or two, that ought to be part of the conversation. A helpful relationship to marijuana ought to include education about it’s effects on the developing brain; including the diminishment of focus and motivation, as well as it’s role in addiction and it’s devastating effects on human relationships.

Pot, like alcohol, when used in excess effects people’s ability to be successful in relationships with others. Addictions are self organizing and diminish our ability to be present for others, to accurately read social cues, to be responsive to the needs of others and to express ourselves well. Put another way, when we’re altered through a substance we alter the quality of our relationships with others, and ourselves. I see it every day in my work as a psychotherapist. And I’m sure we all know that relationships with our partners and children are hard enough when we’re clear and present. When you factor in something like chronic pot use it’s ups the liklihood that relationships are harmed or even fail.

My other thought is about those fabled medical marijuana cards. Can we be honest here? I know many, many people with these cards and for most, they may make it legal but there not legitimate. I’m not knocking the folks who use it and truly benefit medically from it’s use. But this is a system that has found a way around the law so as to allow any person with a headache to be prescribed a card. It’s simply a legal loophole that supports and encourages addiction. The ease with which these cards are dispensed makes a joke of the argument for legitimate medical marijuana use.

My opinion anyway.

By Ernieman
WaccoBB.net

.... It is time for marijuana to be legalized.
.

[Chris Dec]

Ah, Ernie, you included a short and simple sentence in your eloquent essay... “So there is a reason California prisons have a disproportionate number of minorities and youth convicted of non-violent pot crimes,” and in doing so, you have touched upon a bigger, deeper truth that is one of the underlying reasons for the very illegality of marijuana. It’s an easy bust.... especially here in northern California, as you noted. It supplies a constant flow of unlucky risk takers who comprise the disproportionate percentage of prisoners who are behind bars for owning, smoking, selling, carrying, buying, growing... weed. And why? Because prison is a huge business. Business for companies supplying security devices, surveillance technology, construction and maintenance of solid, expensive buildings with heavy welded metal bars and doors. And let’s not forget why corporations contract prison labor. It’s real cheap.

Having grown up in a sleepy small town in upstate New York whose economy was dependent on its state prison, I knew a lot of people who worked there as wardens, deputies, teachers, psychiatrists, guards, janitors, laundry facility managers... it was huge. It contained an entire city within a city... with a private food industry, cigarette and snack food concessions... and everything needed within those thick walls. And that was only one small town of hundreds of thousands in a vast America.

Prison is a big, churning business and it needs those busts to maintain what is now known as the Prison-Industrial Complex. Those businesses have their own highly paid lobbyists to keep pot illegal.

You know, every time I see a rancid problem in our society, it seems to always come down to one primary ailment that we just have to change: money’s influence on government.

I moved out of that sleepy little town a while ago to live in Sebastopol, my little heaven. Last month my sleepy little street suffered a painful loss of three young men who were rash and stupid and thought they were going to win in a losing system. Yeah, they caught the murderer, and he will be added to the rapid expansion of prison inmates and most assuredly contribute to the inevitable building of yet another new, huge, state-of-the-art prison.
20684
[So, there is a reason that California prisons have a disproportionate number of minorities and youth convicted of non-violent pot crimes.]

[Karen Wintman]

Even though you meant affect, not effect, you are really intelligent and right on about addictions. I, myself, was addicted to pot and I promise you it messed with my functionality in relationships and in the world.
Been there, done that,
Karen Wintman

[Connubial Warthog]

Of course, just as their are countless people who drink alcohol responsibly, so there is a majority of pot smokers who enjoy it recreationally on occasion while holding down jobs, raising families and leading productive lives. As marijuana is already incredibly easy to procure, I seriously doubt there will be more pot addiction or abuse after legalization. All criminalization does is to perpetuate the prevalence of the criminal element in the growing and distribution of pot.

<br><br>
Even though you meant affect, not effect, you are really intelligent and right on about addictions. I, myself, was addicted to pot and I promise you it messed with my functionality relationships and in the world.
Been there, done that,
Karen Wintman

[keb]

Hmmmm, well part of the problem here is that most of us can also note countless people who do not drink responsibly. And I'm not just referencing the folks we daily read about in the paper who cause accidents etc. After all, we live in "Wine Country" where drinking, responsibly or not, is encouraged, romanticized and given approval/acceptance.
I think it's hard for us to claim one way or another what "a majority" of us do and I'm also not convinced that holding down a job or raising families is a useful gauge for the impact of pot or alcohol on a persons life. Can people use or drink and maintain these activities? Sure. What I am more interested in, & what I find in my work, has more to do the quality of a person's life. There's a difference between surviving in one's life and thriving.
But you do raise an interesting point: the ease with which pot is available. At least with alcohol we have laws designed to protect young people (setting aside, for the moment, whether or not those laws work). But there are reasons, and benefits, to not allowing kids to sell or bring alcohol to school for example. Here in Sonoma county there is, I believe, an attitude of tacit approval for pot use by young people. Many adults simply turn a blind eye. In fact, it's surprizing to me how frequently I'll do an intake with a new young client &, as part of the process, I inquire about drug use, and have them respond with no drug use issues. A month later they talk about their pot use and when I question them again they say they don't think of pot as a drug! Stunning, to say the least. Neuroscience studies tell us that the human brain is doing very important developmental work right up till the mid twenties and for that reason alone I, for one, would be favor of laws designed to limit young people's access to pot. Would it work? In some cases yes, others no. Clearly with alcohol it helps but doesn't work always.
And lastly, I don't think there's a way for us to know if legalization would or wouldn't increase pot addiction or abuse and, frankly, I'm not really interested in the question of legality. I'm interested in what helps or hinder's our experience of aliveness; what facilitates confidence, pride and sense of well being. Any addiction (pot, alcohol, sex, shopping, porn, etc) is about changing our mood. We feel sad, mad, scared, disappointed etc and we turn to pot/alcohol...whatever...to feel "better" or at least different. And the thing of it is, it works! We do feel different. For a time anyway. As an occasional thing this seems pretty common & without secondary issues. It's when this becomes our habituated way of responding to stress that we are courting trouble. The aforementioned trouble with work & intimate relationships, sure, but also we train ourselves away from our own feelings and lose the function of those feelings. If we're numbed out we miss the useful message that feelings are trying to convey. In effect, we lose touch with ourselves and, if done in a chronic way, we lose confidence in our ability to tolerate normal human experiences. And that, sadly, is a prescription for a diminished life. How helpful it is, then, to know, it doesn't have to go that way.
My opinion, of course.


Of course, just as their are countless people who drink alcohol responsibly, so there is a majority of pot smokers who enjoy it recreationally on occasion while holding down jobs, raising families and leading productive lives. As marijuana is already incredibly easy to procure, I seriously doubt there will be more pot addiction or abuse after legalization. All criminalization does is to perpetuate the prevalence of the criminal element in the growing and distribution of pot.

[Connubial Warthog]

I do not know "countless people" who drink irresponsibly. I do know one person who is in my opinion an addict who happens to be on the periphery of my life. The dude is bipolar, on SRIs, pot, alcohol and god knows what else. But in my circle everyone who drinks does it socially and responsibly as far as I know, unless they all have a secret life. In general, they are a well adjusted lot who enjoy an occasional drink with friends or a glass of wine with dinner. I'm picking up an (not so tacit) underlying suspicion that anyone who feels the desire to alter his/her consciousness once in a while must somehow be lacking the ability to thrive, enjoy life, be present with what is, that somehow this automatically connotes a "problem" or deficit that needs to be identified and "fixed".

The fact is, humans have been altering their awareness by natural means for thousands of years. It is not an unnatural or aberrant impulse, unless one decides the entire human race is aberrant, a thought that has crossed my mind from time to time, ( more in reference to humans proclivity to make war than their predisposition to alter their consciousness.) I for one am grateful for the few psychedelic experiences I had when I was younger, which were life altering in all the right ways and forever changed my perceptions about what was truly important and of value in life. That's right: I am making the audacious assertion that using substances under controlled conditions can (gulp,) be a positive life affirming act that brings one into a fuller, more meaningful relationship with life and yes, under certain circumstances that could include the occasional use of cannabis.

That being said, there are no doubt many people who have an unhealthy relationship with various substances. If it were truly a majority I think we'd be seeing more evidence than we're seeing re alcohol related accidents and other deaths. I'm not saying that 110,000 alcohol related deaths last year is acceptable but it's not 10 million or even one million. And alcohol is legal. And roughly 450,000 people die a year from tobacco which is also legal. In fact, the total drug related fatalities (and that's all drugs,) in the US last year was roughly 38,000, a tiny fraction compared with about 560,000 from alcohol and tobacco. (Stats are from 2012 in US only.) (Pot related deaths from overdose of course almost unknown, although I'm sure there are some that fall into the Darwin Arward category.) We are a nation of some 315 million people, so that number is unlikely to be reflective of a "majority" of users with some form of serious drug problem. And I understand a death toll is not necessarily an accurate portrait of addiction in America, but it does provide some interesting numbers to contemplate.

Chronic Pot use definitely has its downside and it has been documented extensively. And nowhere in my previous post was I condoning the use by young people or people who use it to numb out. And anyway, speaking of numbing out, I don't think it's any healthier for someone to veg out in front of the TV or play mindless computer games for hours every night after work. I know someone who sleeps for 14 hours a day to escape depression. There are evidently many ways to escape ones feelings. After all, its not the pot, alcohol or the activity that is inherently unhealthy, (and no, I'm not advocating that all drugs are OK and should be legalized!- crack, meth, cocaine, heroin etc are all evil in my book,) it's the relationship the individual has with these things that defines whether it's enlivening or deadening one's life. :wink2:

<br><br>
Hmmmm, well part of the problem here is that most of us can also note countless people who do not drink responsibly. And I'm not just referencing the folks we daily read about in the paper who cause accidents etc. After all, we live in "Wine Country" where drinking, responsibly or not, is encouraged, romanticized and given approval/acceptance.
I think it's hard for us to claim one way or another what "a majority" of us do and I'm also not convinced that holding down a job or raising families is a useful gauge for the impact of pot or alcohol on a persons life. Can people use or drink and maintain these activities? Sure. What I am more interested in, & what I find in my work, has more to do the quality of a person's life. There's a difference between surviving in one's life and thriving.
But you do raise an interesting point: the ease with which pot is available. At least with alcohol we have laws designed to protect young people (setting aside, for the moment, whether or not those laws work). But there are reasons, and benefits, to not allowing kids to sell or bring alcohol to school for example. Here in Sonoma county there is, I believe, an attitude of tacit approval for pot use by young people. Many adults simply turn a blind eye. In fact, it's surprizing to me how frequently I'll do an intake with a new young client &, as part of the process, I inquire about drug use, and have them respond with no drug use issues. A month later they talk about their pot use and when I question them again they say they don't think of pot as a drug! Stunning, to say the least. Neuroscience studies tell us that the human brain is doing very important developmental work right up till the mid twenties and for that reason alone I, for one, would be favor of laws designed to limit young people's access to pot. Would it work? In some cases yes, others no. Clearly with alcohol it helps but doesn't work always.
And lastly, I don't think there's a way for us to know if legalization would or wouldn't increase pot addiction or abuse and, frankly, I'm not really interested in the question of legality. I'm interested in what helps or hinder's our experience of aliveness; what facilitates confidence, pride and sense of well being. Any addiction (pot, alcohol, sex, shopping, porn, etc) is about changing our mood. We feel sad, mad, scared, disappointed etc and we turn to pot/alcohol...whatever...to feel "better" or at least different. And the thing of it is, it works! We do feel different. For a time anyway. As an occasional thing this seems pretty common & without secondary issues. It's when this becomes our habituated way of responding to stress that we are courting trouble. The aforementioned trouble with work & intimate relationships, sure, but also we train ourselves away from our own feelings and lose the function of those feelings. If we're numbed out we miss the useful message that feelings are trying to convey. In effect, we lose touch with ourselves and, if done in a chronic way, we lose confidence in our ability to tolerate normal human experiences. And that, sadly, is a prescription for a diminished life. How helpful it is, then, to know, it doesn't have to go that way.
My opinion, of course.

[rossmen]

so easy to judge others when you have been professionally trained and accredited to do so. i don't think an effective strategy to promote mental health is to criminalize peoples efforts to feel better. doesn't seem like you want to bring back prohibition, are you really advocating that it be continued for pot? or do you just want to add a cautionary word about using externally intoxicating substances?



..Neuroscience studies tell us that the human brain is doing very important developmental work right up till the mid twenties and for that reason alone I, for one, would be favor of laws designed to limit young people's access to pot. Would it work? In some cases yes, others no. Clearly with alcohol it helps but doesn't work always. ...

[keb]

Well, I don't know any humans who don't have judgements or opinions and one certainly need not have an advanced degree to have one. I don't think I made any reference to being opposed to people feeling better. I'm all for people feeling better. But speaking of criminalization; I think what's criminal is when chronic, even compulsive use of any substance -though we're talking about pot here- is represented as having no down side. I'm not talking about a moral position (people are bad if they use), I'm talking about how chronic use affects psychological & physiological brain development. These aren't my opinions, these are hard facts.
I'm in favor of protecting young people who do not yet have the maturity to make good, healthy choices & who are vulnerable to turning to substances when they have difficult emotions. This often undermines a persons ability to tolerate, manager & even benefit from emotions. One of the tasks of we older folk is to be engaged with younger ones and to help them understand what they may not yet understand about human bodies, brains & what optimizes development. It's important, for instance, that young people understand that the short term benefit of feeling better has built in problems. One being that the benefit is, indeed, short term (why not be focused on what brings long term happiness). Another is that chronic use undermines our ability to learn how to work with difficult emotions/experiences, thus eroding our confidence in ourselves (resulting in low self esteem) & increasing our reliance on something external rather than building something internal that belongs to us. In the old days we called this building character.
Now to be clear, I'm not talking about occasional or recreational users; people who don't want or need to use it on a three-to-seven days a week cycle. The folks I'm talking about are often daily users.

I'm not interested in prohibition, though I stand by my statement that children needed to be protected. Not so much from the drug as from themselves & their very real lack of knowledge & understanding of the affects of drugs on their body, brain & evolving sense of self. It's why we have laws to protect young folks from drinking too soon. My preference would be for real education about these things. Look at what education has done for cigarette smoking. Some folks clearly still decide, inspite of the evidence, to do it but many now, of their own free will, choose not to. In fact, tobacco use has been steadily declining in recent years.

And lastly, I can't tell you how many times a week I'm in a meeting with a couple, or family members, while they struggle with how to talk to their loved one about the affect their drug or drink use is having on the relationship. It's heart-breaking to see/hear people sacrifice their love relationships because they feel "controlled" or don't want to be told what to do, instead of hearing the real message: "I need you", "please be here with me", "I'm lonely without you". Marshall Rosenberg says there are really only two things we ever say to each other: please & thank you. Inside every complaint is a hidden "please".


so easy to judge others when you have been professionally trained and accredited to do so. i don't think an effective strategy to promote mental health is to criminalize peoples efforts to feel better. doesn't seem like you want to bring back prohibition, are you really advocating that it be continued for pot? or do you just want to add a cautionary word about using externally intoxicating substances?

[pinky]

Weed didn't cause those men to be murdered, greed did.

[Aldo El Hefe]

It sounds kind of hypocritical to say that you think growing pot should be legalized, EXCEPT on your property.
All this hype about fires and damages to houses is a concern, but given the stats really doesn't amount to a very high percentage. We only hear about any problems when the media broadcasts it, trying to sensationalize things to sell papers and advertising.
I think all this media sensationalism is the reason that Sonoma County has such a high percentage of rip-offs and other trouble with pot growing, it seems much worse in Sonoma County than in any other county in California (according to the media and Ernie).
If responsible professionals do things right, then nobody should ever even know what is going on any property, be it mortgaged, rented or actually owned. It is a few bad apples that can spoil the movement, be it medicinal or recreational, quasi legal or legal.

[rossmen]

as pot is further decriminalized many of the the current problems will go away, including the scourge of indoor growing, because the price will drop below where people can make a profit after paying for the power. all the growers i know voted against legalization last time it was on the ballot. while this might bring more access for the young and foolish, decimate a thriving home industry, and create even more stink, these consequences are far preferable than the current environmental and criminal insanity.


It sounds kind of hypocritical to say that you think growing pot should be legalized, EXCEPT on your property.
All this hype about fires and damages to houses is a concern, but given the stats really doesn't amount to a very high percentage. We only hear about any problems when the media broadcasts it, trying to sensationalize things to sell papers and advertising.
I think all this media sensationalism is the reason that Sonoma County has such a high percentage of rip-offs and other trouble with pot growing, it seems much worse in Sonoma County than in any other county in California (according to the media and Ernie).
If responsible professionals do things right, then nobody should ever even know what is going on any property, be it mortgaged, rented or actually owned. It is a few bad apples that can spoil the movement, be it medicinal or recreational, quasi legal or legal.

[Dixon]

all the growers i know voted against legalization last time it was on the ballot
For someone to protect their financial profits by supporting brutal, oppressive public policy that ruins people's lives is absolutely scummy. I can remember when pot was associated with peace, love, and brotherhood/sisterhood. I guess money trumps everything in some people's shriveled little greedy hearts.

[comodin]

Decriminalizing pot would certainly get rid of the insane penalties and associated corruption. But let us try to imagine not only that it is decriminalized, but also not regulated and taxed out of existence. The last proposal I heard would have required permits to grow, with an entry price of something like $500 if I recall, and then some serious cut of the final return taken in further taxes, all of which would have made it unprofitable except for the very largest corporations, such as Philip Morris. Is it too ridiculous to imagine a world in which this plant, like nasturtiums or rosemary, could be allowed to grow without some parasite taxing it?


as pot is further decriminalized many of the the current problems will go away, including the scourge of indoor growing, because the price will drop below where people can make a profit after paying for the power. all the growers i know voted against legalization last time it was on the ballot. while this might bring more access for the young and foolish, decimate a thriving home industry, and create even more stink, these consequences are far preferable than the current environmental and criminal insanity.