Thursday, November 4, 2010

Growers and Co-Ops Against Prop 19?

I was surprised by a couple of things yesterday.

First off they had a marijuana "co-op" (like marijuana stores in California) owner being interviewed on the local news and she was talking about her relief that Prop 19 hadn't passed. Part of what she said was rather ridiculous: "it would make a mockery of medicinal marijuana!" With ABC estimating on the nightly news last week that 90-95% of 215 card holders have no medical need for marijuana I think we're already way past that.

The other part was more honest though. She said that the co-ops would all go out business if the big businesses had come in and began growing. So not everyone in the pot industry in California was thrilled about Prop 19.

The other interesting thing that I've been hearing around town is that many of the growers were against Prop 19. You see, they would rather grow an illegal drug and sell it at a huge profit, than grow a legal drug and pay taxes on their huge profit. While the state and federal government isn't putting the resources into fighting growers, they're afraid that the tax man would and many are supposedly pretty pleased with the election this week.

I'm still glad it didn't pass. I'd rather have it be illegal and have a glimmer of hope exist that the government might wake up and start putting some resources into controlling the rampant drug problem in our area.

Here are a few examples of recent news:

Mobile Home, Pot Destroyed in Blaze (you can't read the entire article yet, but you can see that 200 lbs were destroyed in a mobile home fire this week...)

The second article says there's no proof yet that the fire was related to growing. But it is in a sort of settlement that is known as the center or marijuana production in our area. And this is pretty much what the news looks like every week, week after week.

Yet I am cautiously optimistic. The outcome of prop 19 gave me a tiny bit more confidence in the people of California. As did the overwhelmingly red area that covered the state in most elections. Parts of California do have quite a bit of common sense. You just have to come a little ways inland to see it.

2 comments:

  1. My husband and I have been frustrated over the years that most of California is Red and a very small section is blue, yet it is those small sections that run this state. I wouldn't say that is exactly fair. We're at the mercy of L.A. and San Francisco. I do wish that we could somehow make them their own states or something so the rest of us could determine how we want to live rather than be forced to endure crazy legislation.

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  2. Yeah on CM a few days ago I read that its mostly cops and moms that were for it, everyone who has anything to do with the industry was against it.

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