POT SHOP DEBATE IS A CASE OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS

A friend suggested Grass Valley would be a better place to open
western Nevada County's first marijuana dispensary. "I knew a guy
whose last name was Potts and he lived on High Street," he told me. We
had a good laugh until I realized he was serious.

National sports commentators had fun with Grass Valley not long ago
when professional football player Ricky Williams was visiting a yoga
farm here after leaving football because they wouldn't let him smoke
pot. He soon realized that yoga and pot didn't pay nearly as much as
professional football, so he dropped the pipe and returned to the
Miami Dolphins, where many of his teammates were probably shooting
steroids through their butt pads and foreheads.

I bring this up as Nevada City — which some say is Grass Valley's
contrary sister — studies the notion of opening a medical marijuana
dispensary. A fellow named Harry Bennett, who reportedly has a
doctor's note that allows him to consume marijuana, has asked the city
if he can open a shop, much like the one up in Colfax. We sent a
reporter up there to check it out and discovered it is quite the
well-run operation that seems to be doing everything it is supposed to
do by way of rules and regulations. Maybe that's why the mayor of
Colfax told us there have been no problems with the business.

Nevada City's City Council is doing a thorough job studying the issue
in an effort to craft an ordinance that will ensure safeguards are in
place should they allow a dispensary to open. Police Chief Lou Trovato
and a couple of councilwomen even visited the Colfax shop on a
fact-finding tour.

They didn't see drug addicts sleeping on the sidewalks, didn't get
robbed, and nobody offered them sex in exchange for drug money. The
business was very much like a drugstore, complete with candy bars,
cookies and brownies. And … by the way … they sell painkillers at
drugstores and I don't see pill-poppers hanging out in the parking lot
of Longs. They go in, get their pills, and go home.

That's one of the reasons they ought to allow someone to open a
dispensary (the fellow in Colfax is also in the running to open one
here) in Nevada City and/or Grass Valley.

For starters, they already sell pot in Nevada City and Grass Valley.
If you were looking to buy some, it might take you 10 minutes to find
someone willing to sell you some. That's the way it's been for
probably the last 40 years or so, ever since a fellow named Puck (no
last name) came up here from Haight-Ashbury in 1969, spilled some
seeds on the ground near his North San Juan domed hut, came out the
next morning and saw 10-foot plants. He called a few friends and
they've been farming ever since, much to the displeasure of
honest-working vodka drinkers.

In fact, marijuana is Nevada County's number one cash crop today,
which may be the only thing propping up our fragile economy. The
problem is, nobody is getting any tax money and we're spending a whole
lot of taxpayer dollars (what little is left) trying to find and burn
marijuana (the Sheriff's Office budget has been untouched by budget
cuts).

Maybe that's why my friend who works for the Yuba County District
Attorney's Office thinks it may be time to decriminalize drugs
altogether. He prosecutes most of the gang-related violent crime and
says drugs are the lifeblood of that activity. Decriminalize the drugs
and the gangs' tax-free empires may crumble, or at least leave them to
kidnapping, prostitution and perhaps Kool-Aid stands.

If that doesn't get your attention, maybe the fact that our state is
spending more to house criminals than to educate students. At a time
when California is in the midst of a budget impasse and a $26 billion
(what does that even mean anymore?) deficit, the state Department of
Corrections made an estimated 2,000 new hires since May (and you
thought there was a hiring freeze?). It even hired two Muslim
ministers at around $45,000 per year each. We spend $10 billion per
year to keep the state's estimated 170,000 inmates (many of them in
prison for drug-related crimes) behind bars. That doesn't include the
$200 million or so we spend each year on their medical care, which is
why more than 70,000 people work for that department.

By the way … did you know that a prison psychiatrist makes $249,468
per year? A guy named Wes just landed that gig, according to my latest
edition of Capitol Weekly, which lists all the state's new hires,
complete with name and salaries. Don't read it on an empty stomach.

I learned once that the definition of insanity was doing the same
thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Perhaps it's time to try a new approach when it comes to drugs and
drug enforcement. So far it's tough to tell the winners from the losers.