cannabisnews.com: The Town Dandy: Legalize it?





The Town Dandy: Legalize it?
Posted by CN Staff on June 07, 2007 at 13:49:45 PT
By Scott Brown
Source: North Coast Journal
California -- The longhairs are at it again, trying to ruin the economic base of Humboldt County. As local anti-environmentalist gadfly Stephen Lewis of Rio Dell put it recently in the Eureka Reporter, the goal of the enviros "has been consistent if never acknowledged: the destruction of corporate-based industries in Humboldt County." Take that argument to its logical conclusion: First went logging, then fishing, now the cultural elite ruling the Plaza in Arcata is gunning for HumCo's third great export -- marijuana.
How else can you explain thousands of "4/20" protesters gathering in late April to advocate for the legalization of pot? If you need further proof of the conspiracy against the Humboldt Nation, look no further than the "legalize it" crowd. Don't let these mellow protesters fool you. Pot pumps $100 million into local businesses each year, and that's a conservative estimate. But making it legal could kick out the third leg from the teetering stool that is Humboldt's natural resource-driven economy.I wondered what would happen here if Mary Jane's sweet buds could be sold like cigarettes at every convenience store in the land. I turned to local economic expert and HSU professor Erick Eschker, the director of the Humboldt Economic Index."More than likely, we'd lose our comparative advantage if it were legalized," he told me. "It's very likely that big agribusiness would get into it, and [marijuana production] would all move to the Central Valley. Some people say we have good growers up here, but I think they'd move. Land attracts human capital."Eschker said that Humboldt County's economic advantage for marijuana cultivation is its remoteness and a lack of law enforcement. (I don't want to get him in trouble with the cops, but you have to admit that when the district attorney publicly states he won't prosecute anyone with a medical marijuana card, 99 or fewer plants and less than three pounds of bud, the potent weed is basically legal here in quantities small enough not to attract the attention of the feds.)Cannabis, a native of the tropics, thrives on lots of light and heat, resources in short supply north of the redwood curtain. The cultivation guru Jorge Cervantes, the author of Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible, said in a phone interview that he thought that marijuana would do well commercially anywhere corn was successful -- and you know how much corn we grow in Humboldt.As an indoor crop, pot is an ecological disaster. Cervantes estimates that a 100-square-foot garden requires 50 gallons of fertilizer-laced water per week. That's a lot of runoff. Then there's the carbon dioxide. Marijuana thrives on high CO 2 levels during the flowering phase. Cervantes said that 700 to 1,500 parts-per-million of CO 2 is ideal, compared with the 380 ppm average for outside air. One grow website helpfully observes, "CO 2 is cheaply produced by burning natural gas." You might as well move to the North Pole and start melting the ice cap with a hair dryer. It's hard to imagine legal indoor cultivation passing muster with the environmentalists in Humboldt County.When asked how much economic damage legalization would do, Eschker said he had no idea. No one has ever done a study of the underground economy in Humboldt County. (This Town Dandy suspects no one really wants to know the answer.) One of Eschker's students outlined a methodology for calculating it, however, and Eschker would like to undertake the project. The only problem is money. "If you know anyone who can help fund some of this research, let me know," Eschker said.Of particular concern to Eschker is the effect of the pot industry on part of the Humboldt economy that has received a lot of attention recently: housing affordability. "I'm interested in to what degree apartment rents are supported by pot growers," he said. "There are two classes of renters here, pot growers and non-pot growers." As cultivation has moved indoors, pot growers with pocketfuls of cash push up rents for everyone -- unless, Eschker said, landlords can differentiate between growers and everyone else and charge the growers more. "If it were me, and I found out someone was growing, I'd triple the rent."To estimate the underground economy, Eschker said he would look at energy use for starters. Then there are the mandatory banking reports on cash flows in and out of the county, sales of money orders, and other financial factors. Money orders is a subject I know something about. I visit the post office most every day to pick up my mail, and I frequently have to stand in line to get packages. Every third person seems to be at the post office to buy money orders. Either there are a lot of eBayers here who don't have PayPal accounts, or there are tons of folks with cash they need to burn.The clerks, many of whom have done time in the jungles of Vietnam and on the front lines of the post office, can be very cavalier on the subject. I've heard them tell people, "You can only launder $3,000 per day at the post office." Or when a fellow in dirty jeans pulled out a wad of cash as big as my fist and began peeling off hundred dollar bills like a bank teller, one clerk said to him, "You look like a guy who's used to counting money in the wind."I asked a post office employee about it recently. Oh, yes, he said, "We launder a lot of C-notes here. And stacks of twenties."The post office is cracking down on money laundering and recently sent its customer-service employees to training. Now if someone requests $3,000 or more in money orders, the customer has to show ID and fill out a form called a "Suspicious Transaction Report." Needless to say, most customers who are handed the paperwork suddenly remember something pressing they have to do and leave in a hurry.Legalize pot and most of these transactions will go away. It's not just generator and hydroponics supply companies that would suffer if marijuana farming left the area (or if it were taken over by Mexican drug cartels -- the pot equivalent of big-box stores -- which ship most of their profits out of the area). Small-time growers pump a lot of money into the local economy, and since their product is paid for in cash, it tends to stay local. When electricians, massage therapists and waiters get paid in cash, they spend it around town, which has got to keep shopkeepers happy. It's hard to buy a computer from Dell if you want to use a stack of Ben Franklins to pay for it.I'm not suggesting that all pot farming would leave the county if weed were legal. We might develop boutique growers and attract some tourists nostalgic for the famous Humboldt green. There would be booming pot-based local businesses along the lines of Cypress Grove cheese or Lazio tuna -- businesses to be proud of, but not the primary driving forces in our local economy.So if you're pushing for legalization, be careful what you wish for.Scott Brown is the editor of Fine Books & Collections magazine, and he's glad Hank Sims' absence allowed him to put his degree in economics to good use. Source: North Coast Journal (CA)Author: Scott BrownPublished: June 7, 2007Copyright: 2007 North Coast JournalContact: ncjour northcoast.comWebsite: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #15 posted by JohnO on June 09, 2007 at 16:17:45 PT:
Whig
Whig you mentioned this ; [How about a national referendum? We can call a constitutional convention at any time. It's dangerous to do this lightly, however.] I don't think that would ever be a good idea, after so much time now the United States has been almost thoroughly Balkanized in a political sense, even people with common topical agreements (such as cannabis legalization) can find issues to fight against each other in a most uncivilized manner if we looked long enough. When you call a constitutional convention then ALL issues are ON the table, from the basic structure right down to each individual article in the bill of rights. There are some who wish to rename the word PEOPLE as it is relates to individual rights of firearms ownership in the second amendment to mean a collective, or the right of the GOVERNMENT in the name of the PEOPLE, this would effectively disarm the people and leave the government in absolute power. These same dolts would then be aghast to learn that the first amendment would also be changed to allow a collective interpretation of the first amendment, I.E., the GOVERNMENT would have free speech in a collective sense on behalf of the people and individuals would have only the right to shut up and stop complaining about the way the government is unresponsive to the needs of the people, kind of like the King of England before the Magna Carta, and the press would then be controlled by you know who, the US government, reminiscent of TASS in the old Soviet Union. For that matter, there would be people who would try to change the fundamental structure from a representative based republic to a socialistic style democracy (which they now claim we are) No, the issues are so clouded that it is apparent to me I would rather deal with the devil we know, than the devils we can create by applying a Frankenstein science experiment to our constitution in the hopes of making it better.In the hopes we can prevail without losing more than we gain, JohnO 
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Comment #14 posted by afterburner on June 08, 2007 at 22:17:10 PT
Hawaiians Opposing Green Harvest Helicopter Raids
US HI: PUB LTE: End Pot Prohibition,
(Wed, 06 Jun 2007),
Hawaii Tribune Herald (Hilo, HI)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n694/a08.html
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Comment #13 posted by FoM on June 08, 2007 at 21:59:23 PT
whig
Giuliani and his close association with the Mob or Mafia tells me all I need to know about him.
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Comment #12 posted by whig on June 08, 2007 at 20:49:29 PT
Giuliani quote from YouTube link
“We set up headquarters at 75 Barclay Street which was right there with the police commissioner and the fire commissioner, the head of emergency management, and we were operating out of there when we were told the World Trade Center was going to collapse.”
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Comment #11 posted by whig on June 08, 2007 at 20:47:39 PT
FoM
The blog post pretty much gives the story, though. Giuliani had someone arrested for asking a question, apparently.
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on June 08, 2007 at 15:07:48 PT
whig
I like Obama but I am afraid to get my hopes up so I will be content if just about anyone running wins. I will accept Senator Clinton but it would only be because I want a Democrat as President not a Republican. She is at the bottom of the list for me.I can't watch Youtube videos anymore. HughesNet shuts you down to slower then and isp speed to punish you for 24 hours. I have a way faster speed now since they put FAP ( fair access policy) in effect since they stopped people downloading all the time but I miss Youtube and Rust Radio.
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Comment #9 posted by whig on June 08, 2007 at 14:58:24 PT
FoM
Are you still for Obama? I still prefer him to Hillary Clinton. I hope someone will ask the candidates about medical marijuana soon. Rudy Giuliani has made clear he is opposed, but that's no surprise and he is probably the worst of the worst, plus he did know the towers were going to collapse before they did.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zziLzP5ZL_YHere's an interesting blog post:http://tinyurl.com/2edj9p
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Comment #8 posted by afterburner on June 08, 2007 at 13:45:12 PT
Boldly Going
CN ON: Column: Wanted: Tokers In Suits, NOW Magazine, (07 Jun 2007) 
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v07/n692/a02.html?176
Alan Young is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall. His column appears
every other week in NOW.Excerpt:"It's obvious that politicians do not really care about the vast number of young people who enjoy illicit drugs. They're either too young or too indifferent to vote. So while people of influence remain silent about drug law reform, the Tories are poised to announce yet another National Drug Strategy that, like all the others, is grounded in more minimum sentences. "Drug-taking behaviour will always be constructed by the state as a product of youthful indiscretion or stupidity and of little interest to law-abiding, productive and mature adults. This image can only be maintained if the state also maintains a consistent image of drug use as deviant behaviour. "Aging lawyers, doctors, corporate executives and religious leaders have to publicly acknowledge that they can and do enjoy illicit drugs and do not conform to the state-sponsored stereotype of the degenerate drug abuser. "When the late Pierre Berton boldly acknowledged his love of the plant and demonstrated his joint-rolling prowess on Rick Mercer's television show, this single act of courage had greater potential to dismantle the war on drugs than the collective hubris of thousands of youthful activists taking to the streets and parks to smoke gigantic joints when the clock strikes 4:20 pm. "
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on June 08, 2007 at 11:02:06 PT
Whig
That's seems like a good thing. If I didn't think voting in the primary would make a difference then I would stay an Independent. It takes time when you live in the country to change things like this. I got a letter from Blackwell six months after we voted in 06 and it said I was registered to vote now. Now I have to go in and verifiy something. I wish they would follow this rule I like.Keep it simple stupid! 
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Comment #6 posted by whig on June 08, 2007 at 10:25:27 PT
FoM
One nice thing about California is that independents can vote in whichever primary they want (either one, not both of course).
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Comment #5 posted by whig on June 08, 2007 at 10:23:44 PT
JohnO
How about a national referendum? We can call a constitutional convention at any time. It's dangerous to do this lightly, however.
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on June 08, 2007 at 10:23:00 PT
JohnO 
I will be registering as a Democrat ( I'm currently an Independent) so I can vote in the primary. I have heard this said more then one time by people in the Republican Party about not being a one issue voter and I agree. I am not a one issue voter and the Democrats care about issues that are important to me. Ron Paul said we are a two party system and he is liked by some people here on CNews. It really is a matter of our values and what is important to us as individuals.
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Comment #3 posted by JohnO on June 08, 2007 at 09:56:02 PT:
Democrats only SAID they support legalization,
Don't make the mistake of believing they will ever deliver on that. With the exception of Dennis Kusinich I think they would ALL reconsider in light of new information they learn only after getting elected. For one thing there is a huge dependency on marijuana within the ranks of law enforcement. No, I don't mean they smoke it, (some do) I mean they need it in order to justify their existence. If law enforcement has less to do, there will be less need for them, hence a net loss in jobs. And there is the matter of confiscation sales, they won't ever give up all that drug money. It has always seemed to me a big indictment of the fundamental morals of law enforcement communities to sit back and watch a small time dealer gain wealth over time with the idea that when there is sufficient money and property to steal they would reap the harvest. Talk about morally bankrupt! I'll vote for a Libertarian even if everyone says it's a wasted vote, someday principals will win out. Principals mean nothing if we don't use them. John. 
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Comment #2 posted by user123 on June 07, 2007 at 18:58:53 PT:
Good Angle
I like the reverse psychology this article uses. Points out the fact that the GDP relies on a thriving black market.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on June 07, 2007 at 17:54:28 PT
Calif.: Candidates Answer To Public Issues
June 7, 2007Excerpt: All the Democrats said they supported gay marriage, and all the Democrats said they supported the federal legalization of medical marijuana.Complete Article: http://www.gazettes.com/congress06072007.html
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