In Covelo, Harsh Realities Setting In

A long road paved with good intentions has brought Mendocino County to a hellish land of marijuana cultivation called Covelo. 

Those good intentions were mostly lies, but well-intended ones. Maybe. 

After all the years of happy-face promises from weedvocates, the mask is off and harsh realities are setting in. No one in 2021 is coughing up sunny rubbish about pot as a medical marvel, nor is anyone forecasting a county budget overflowing with money from the taxes, taxes, and more taxes generated by legalization. 

No one talks about “victimless” crime these days or suggests weed as a sane, safe and natural intoxicant compared with bad old beer and bourbon. Marijuana as an unrivaled bearer of joy to the world was a narrative propelled from the start by dishonest propaganda. But now the fig leaf is gone, the camouflage removed, the truth revealed. 

We survey a scarred and scorched earth where marijuana is cultivated and we once again remember the abiding laws of unintended consequences and of details designed by devils. It’s all on display right now in Covelo, and it is not a pretty sight. 

There’s no one better at framing the marijuana monstrosity than Mendocino County’s Sheriff, Matt Kendall. Born and raised in Covelo, he now views his home town with sadness tinged by horror. He calls it “the most dangerous place to live,” and says “the amount of violence is ridiculous.” 

In a recent front page Daily Journal story by Karen Rifkin, the Sheriff said the industry “has become a massive beast” and that the criminality is so pervasive and out of control that if given 500 deputies and 500 helicopters for 500 days he would be unable to make a dent in the problems. 

“If they (the county) were to give me $100 million it would do no good” he said, due in part to difficulties required to train and hire new officers. “The time to put in enforcement regulations was when the ordinance was first set up,” he said but lax county conditions lured cartels from around the planet to come do their dirty work in Mendocino County. 

Kendall said big money bankrolls organizations from Mexico, Russia, Bulgaria and elsewhere. Sources in Covelo say growers are flooding in from Phoenix, San Jose and Juarez, Mexico. These newcomers do not arrive hoping to settle down, raise a family or give anything back to the community. They are in Covelo to tear as much flesh off as they can, gorge themselves and move on. 

They pollute with impunity, eliminate deer, rabbits, birds and anything else cutting into profits. These are hard criminals by nature and trade, and don’t believe killing a bear or destroying a stream rises to the level of a crime. Not that they’d care if it did. 

These guys would sell kilos of pot to their six-year old niece; draining an aquifer troubles them not. But eventually, like everything under the sun, changes will come, markets will tumble and they’ll leave Covelo. No one will suggest a farewell parade. 

Again, Sheriff Kendall: “When the bubble bursts we will be left with (huge) problems. When they pack up and leave we will have even more poverty than we have now. This situation is poisoning our future.” 

Bitter irony awaits. If we were to get our wish and scores of these cretin growers were arrested, brought to jail and then to trial, Mendocino County would be broke in a week. Each defendant will tell the court he is indigent and demand taxpayer-funded lawyers, investigators and interpreters. It will cost millions. For your own amusement try finding a few dozen court translators fluent in Russian, Bulgarian and whatever they speak at the North Pole. 

But maybe Comatose Joe will send in federal troops with tanks and bazookas and have the cretins charged with federal crimes. That will be the easy part. The hard part will be waiting 100 years for the rivers, streams, land and fish to recover from the pillage, poison and rape going on right now.

More irony: This could not have happened in a Mendocino County with a healthy, thriving timber industry continuously monitored by timber cutters, foresters and rangers. The earliest sign of an illegal grow would have been reported to cops, followed by a quick bulldozing by L-P loggers. 

But no. Our back-to-the-landers got exactly what they wished for when they screamed, protested, spiked trees, sabotaged equipment and pretended to care about spotted owls. The loggers, law abiding family men who grew up and lived here all their lives and who loved their home towns, were driven out by Earth First and its angry, smug comrades. 

Where today are all the protesters singing songs and linking arms? Who is sitting in a tree or camping near a stream to prevent crimes against the environment far in excess of anything loggers ever did, or would have done? Where is that fierce compassion and determined spirit in defense of Mother Nature? 

The lumber companies are gone, marijuana is legal and the protesters have triumphed. Now travel to Covelo to gaze upon the fruits of your victory: Millions of dollars of legal marijuana packed into trucks, rolling to Denver, profits to Vladivostok.