The last time marijuana did me a favor was when I went to see the Grateful Dead along with 30,000 other smelly hippies and, just as the show was about to start, realized I’d left my stash of weed back in the VW bus.
Uh oh. Like, Dude…
So I had to sit through 16 hours of noodling, feedback, Dark Star and boredom, at the end of which I realized “Like, Dude—-this band totally sucks, man!”
I went home and traded in my Live at Fillmore East album for a copy of The Carpenters Greatest Hits, and from then on my life was like, totally right on, dude. I can’t thank weed enough for showing me the error(s) of my ways and putting me back on the road to sanity. Not sure about the other 30,000 hippies; they can’t have all moved to Mendocino County.
Since then marijuana has been one big stupid headache after another, having gone from being a “victimless crime” and mild intoxicant to a medical marvel capable of curing anything from tuberculosis to a broken ankle.
And here we are. Marijuana at long last is as legal as aspirin, and more socially acceptable than tobacco. The turning point was in softening up the citizenry with all that rubbish about weed being the wonder cure for every ailment in the Physicians’ Desk Reference. Remember how pot cured Glaucoma, and that former sufferers cast aside their crutches and shouted hallelujah after a single dose of ganja therapy?
Or cancer and all the promising research being undertaken that would soon replace Laetrile as the ultimate solution? Even marijuaniacs would today acknowledge they were lying just a real lot about all that guff.
The capper was yet another fabrication the weed industry promoted, which was that once the harmless leafy substance was legalized, why just think of all the tax dollars that would come rolling into city, county and state coffers starting yesterday!
Marijuana’s been legal for many years now, and tell me what decade you think Mendocino County will realize its first nickel of profit. Before you answer, check out some of the cash outlays the county is making to build its regulatory agency to deal with the growers and gardens and water and paperwork and security and many, many other things neither of us ever thought of.
In a recent Daily Journal advertising section a modest display ad appeared in the Help Wanted columns, offering the following county positions for qualified candidates:
Chief Planner, Cannabis Program
Cartographer / Planner, Cannabis Program
Office Services Supervisor, Cannabis Program
Planners I / II, Cannabis Program
Planning Technician I, Cannabis Program
Senior Planner, Cannabis Program
How soon will these well-compensated county employees run through a million dollars per year in salaries and benefits, and how soon will the previously mentioned nickel(s) of profit mean the county breaks even? How many other people are already employed by the county trying to figure out how to rake in tax money from a reluctant group of growers who have always dodged the law, taxes, and giving anything to the very communities in which they grow and thrive and get so rich they can buy second and homes in Hawaii and Costa Rica?
We’ve been duped again, and this time with a big swindle that no one saw coming, or at least no one employed by Mendocino County.
Because seriously now, do you suppose 2022 will be the year wily old outlaw growers on remote parcels of land behind multiple locked gates on confusing roads heading to unmapped grow sites will invite county bureaucrats in county cars to come count their plants, inspect their water lines, measure the product, estimate the haul, calculate the owed revenue, photograph everything and be invited back in three weeks to be assured of mandatory compliance?
Me neither.
Or will those longtime growers simply maintain contact with the same old sources in Denver and Minneapolis they’ve been using since the 1980s, and do business the same old successful way as always?
Me too.
Is This Legal?
Another intriguing UDJ story outlined the subterfuge and chicanery involving rogue recyclers bringing truckloads to weigh stations and finding illegal ways to increase their pay. Some have the same load weighed twice, others bring in bottles and cans from out of state and cash them in here in California.
But the story ignored another, more dishonest scam utilized right here in Ukiah. Like everywhere in the state, when you buy a six-pack of Coke or a bottle of wine you are charged a “CA Redemption Value” deposit to be refunded upon returning the empty containers.
But Ukiah stopped refunding the redemption fees years ago. Local recycling centers have all disappeared, and today there’s nowhere to cash in the glass and / or aluminum for the promised deposit. How many tens of thousands of dollars disappear per month?
How much would Ukiah citizens be entitled to if, for instance, an attorney (Erik Petersen? Attila Panczel?) launched a Class Action suit for monies owed?
With millions in reimbursements we’ll be able to throw a big party at my place!
(Tom Hine was cheered to see neon lights glowing outside the Forest Club, and plans to drop in for a properly chilled Coors one of these nights. TWK says Ukiah cannot afford to lose another bar or saloon.)
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