Debatable (Updated 11:30am)

Weed013I attended the Measure “S” debate held by the League of Women Voters last night. Turn out was sparse. The disappointing numbers may be traced to several factors…

a)  The Giants/Cardinals game

b) Growers busy with harvest/trimming

c) Growers/users paranoia of being profiled by Sheriffs at Rood Center.

d) Guarding campaign signs from opposition thieves

e) Just forgot

Take your pick. And don’t forget to vote!!

Marijuana PosterUPDATE: In my previous post, “The ‘S’ Mess”, I mentioned a poster I saw in Atlanta, Georgia back in 1972. This is it, although my failing memory remembered it with a Mary J leaf instead of the big “A”.

And wonder of wonders…Jeff P. is reporting that there is a movie being made about our local drug culture called (of all things) GRASS VALLEY!!! (see comments for link.)

It will be interesting to see how the tourist industry/ERC  plays this one!

 

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14 Responses to Debatable (Updated 11:30am)

  1. I’d vote for C and D.

    Mostly D.

  2. fish says:

    f) All of the above

  3. There’s another possibility: People have made up their minds and don’t want to hear any more about the subject. That’s the box I would check.

    I flipped to channel 17 during the half-inning breaks of the Giants-Cards game, but didn’t hear much that caused me to sit-up and pay attention. I didn’t see the start so I may be on shaky ground here, but the event looked more like a q-and-a than a debate.

    But Cliff Newell made one point that I haven’t heard before: California will legalize recreational marijuana in the future, so we need to establish county land-use regulations before a state ballot initiative does it for us.

    • If this is a hit, I can see a new tourism campaign along the lines of “We put the ‘Grass’ in Grass Valley,” or “Visit the folks who put the ‘Grass’ in Grass Valley.”

      On balance, I’m thinking the local movers-and-shakers aren’t going to greet this with the same excitement as they did “The Christmas Card.”

      So much for being a great place to raise kids!

      • Chris Peterson says:

        News flash:

        Grass Valley and Nevada City were known for pot WAAAY before any measure on your ballot, and many a well-adjusted kid has been raised in that time.
        This, like most ballot measures of social importance, is merely coming to grips with an honest public acknowledgement of that fact and a way to deal with it in the light of day, rather than pretend it doesn’t exist. (Or another 40 years and we’ll have it stopped.) Some of the best customers, back in the day. were DA’s, judges, mayors, cops and legislators of every level.
        Honest people, all the way up to Presidents of the country, admit to using the herb at one point or another. That not only destroys the myth that it stunts your social drive, but Olympians like Michael Phelps also make a mockery of the physical setbacks of use.
        The opposition is made up of the few who never tried it, (which is NO criterion for debate), those public figures who make a living catching these “criminals,” and those who are playing the hypocritical, “finger-in-the-wind,” political game of social acceptance.
        It’s way past time for the supposed pillars of the community to ‘fess up and get with the scientific evidence of it’s beneficial medical applications, which even few of the advocates have a handle on. That, and the fact that, after working my butt off all day, if I want to sit by a warm fire in my own home and light up a joint, it’s nobody’s damn business but my own.
        Perhaps if the side effects, like alcohol, were more noticeable, such as brawling, wife beating, and vehicular homicide, and it was therefore easier to recognize unwanted behavior, we would all embrace it. Too bad it doesn’t cause more destructive behavior, and rot our livers and lungs: we could have ended this debate a long time ago, one way or the other.
        Problem is; it makes most people who argue against it look like anti-gay politicians who get busted in airport bathrooms for soliciting.

    • Chris Peterson says:

      I hope they cast the series with characters that are true to the profession. It doesn’t appear that they are.
      There’s the money guy who bank rolls the project; usually some egocentric slick dick from Florida.
      There’s the grifter; a semi-local dude who exudes koombya but is actually just a fast talking back-stabber.
      And then there’s the mule; the gullible guy who actually does the work and sits all day in the middle of the crop, takes all the risk, and usually ends up with nothing to show for his efforts because, as planned all along, the crop is ripped off by his “partners.”
      Oh, and the enforcer, who shows up whenever outside interests screw up the plan, or if the mule figures out who actually ripped him off.
      If they cast it as good-hearted hippies who are merely toiling to bring peace, love, and joy to the community, then they’re way off base to the reality. That scenario is the exception; not the rule.

      There’s more hypocrisy in one pound of pot than in a truck load of moonshine, and legalization will force all but the mule to find “work” elsewhere.

  4. E Christina Dabis says:

    You and I live in the boundary of GV, Bob. Measure S is not on our ballot. I’m not sure if I like that, or not. Thinking along the ‘legal lines’, we are residents of Nevada County, but I suppose since we are within the jurisdiction of Grass Valley, our right to vote on Measure S has been trumped. Actually, I don’t know if I like that, or not. *confused*

    • E Christina Dabis says:

      Oooopssss… there is a PAGE 2 for this ballot. Measure “S” is on our ballot, Bob.

      • Mark Johnson says:

        Hi Chris,
        I just checked with Kristi/GV City Clerk. She confirmed GV voters will vote on Measure S – Kristi’s reply:” Yes, because it is a county measure. It won’t however change or rule anything inside the City limits.” Kristi

  5. LL Johnson says:

    I have read Measure S twice. Confusing with incomplete sentences and doesn’t really address the problem we have with the growers here. We live on 10 acres and can still smell the skunk like smell in our house and it is down the hill and across the road on 17 acres. Until all the illegal grows are stopped and resolved, it will just create more of the crime, trespassers, beatings on our road. Yes, all of this happened. It can be scary living like this. I have nothing against recreational and medical use but all of this growing up here probably goes elsewhere but the crime is here.

  6. Robert Lovejoy says:

    I vote E-2: too stoned to remember, too stoned to forget

  7. Robert Lovejoy says:

    Crabbie lives to fight another day. Three cheers for RL the Crabbman.

    http://www.ncscooper.com/r-l-crabb-status-page/#.VERElmK9KK0

  8. steve O'Herlihy says:

    Regarding the rumored new show called “Grass Valley” about pot farming:
    I think the upcoming show is a good fit and can be a modeled after the hit series “House of Cards” starring Kevin Spacey. I don’t know about the Brass Rail Saloon in North San Juan but brass knuckles are certainly on display this political season

    Measure S has temporarily unveiled the deep culture war going on in our community. Partisans on both sides are passionate, and thus are operating closer to the surface of the murky waters.

    On one side of the political isle you have Republican Women Federated operating through their main stream, hard-to-challenge proxies that include the likes of Sheriff Keith Royal, County Counsel, Board of Supervisors and almost certainly the Elections Dept. Add to this the RWF fringe proxies in the form of the State of Jefferson & Tea Party miscreants, and what you end up with is a toxic soup of authoritarian muscle flexing bare chested as their prevailing order is challenged from a most unusual quarter.

    On the other side of the local political isle is the progressive element, as well as all those discerning individuals that can read the tea leaves that the war on pot was lost long ago (as prices for weed crashed due to prohibition not working). Moderates, liberals, and some thinking conservatives who respect the reality of the marketplace (or are sick of local tin-horn authoritarians touting virtues of restraint (but they get to call out what items to restrain)) will vote Yes on S to send a signal — at least as a protest. However, without enough of the right-wing recognizing how they are being played by current and retired public sector employees to fend off the end of prohibition, any revolt in the form of measure S passing seems doomed.

    Should measure S go down, it will not be a proud moment for true conservatives who wish to limit government, respect free markets, and promote individual liberty. Don’t believe me however, just ask Sheriff Mack and / or Tom McClintock. Again, it is about listening to thinking conservatives — not the local public sector variant masquerading as such.

    In summary, it looks like not enough of the local political right in Nevada County will recognize how they are being used by the very entities that they would normally seek to oppose.

    So yes, plenty of drama but honestly the bully tactics of the local power structure are more along the cynical tactics used in the nation’s capital — hence the “House of Cards” analogy.

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