AND THE HERB SAVED A REGION

To the Editor:

Re: Bob Hall's editorial on job cuts by government and IH, and rural
impoverishment: A parable.

In the beginning was the land and it was good, and woman and man came and
lived thereon and called it Kootenay. The people multiplied and enjoyed
the fruits of the land. And it came to pass that strangers arrived from
the west across the deep and from the east across the mountains. Verily so
many came and seized dominion over land, that the strangers deemed the
original people of no account.

The strangers were mighty in invention. This is the tale of generations of
the strangers cities: Babylon begat Athens, and Athens Rome, Ottawa and
Victoria and Vancouver. To feed their cities the strangers sent gold and
lead, trees and electricity, from Kootenay.

And strangers built towns wherein to dwell. Behold! there arose Nelson and
Castlegar and Trail. Yet gold and trees became exhausted. Remunerated
labour for townspeople grew scarce and they lamented that they had no
commodity to offer on the altars of the market. Verily there was movement
of people from Kootenay to cities and lands of more opportunity, so that
schools and hospitals were closed.

Men of power, in their towers called Parliament and Legislature and City
Hall, decreed the market to be supreme. Verily some proclaimed that office
work, tourists, and private entrepreneurs would suffice to redeem
Kootenay's failed commodities. Yet it was not so. Insufficient employment
plagued the land. And, swelling the ill-effects from failure of
commodities, wags the termination of office work by rulers.

Yet behold! In Nelson and lands near unto it, people might still prosper.
And some, called journalists, wondered in Rolling Stone and Fifth Estate,
why it was so. "Holy smoke!" they said. "What's up?"

Lo, an answer! The seer Forbes said a BC commodity was verily being sold
to the markets of the world. Its worth: $7 billion. Yet it was not
righteous to grow and purvey it. By strange motive, for fear deep in minds
of those who rule, it hath been deemed unlawful intoxicant. It is not
fruit of the vine to be drunk lawfully as in long tradition. Nay, it is
fruit of a green herb, lit afire, and inhaled.

Though a multitude may breathe herb's monetary atmosphere, none can in
truth measure its life-giving income for people of Kootenay. Thus, mere
guesses prevail. Yea though it employeth, and pays rent and generated
cashflow, commerce in herb be not countenanced by lawmakers, and so none
shall say how great its contribution to Kootenay prosperity. And - vilest
blasphemy! - it escapeth all taxation.

Here endeth the lesson. And in case anyone misses the parabolic point of
the tale, I will crudely restate it. We still need a commodity to make
this region support large populations. Denial thrives among those who
prosper in the white economy, but they would learn the truth of my
intuition if their businesses suddenly lost the cashflows generated in the
black alternative. Meanwhile no one can verify intuition.

I myself have watched as some grow wealthy in the drug business, invest
and "become legitimate." I know the perfect historical parallel: men who
founded their fortunes during Prohibition; the U.S. was a rich market for
alcohol made in Canada. Our economic and legal conundrum is not going
away; we are all implicated. I'm glad for cash infusing local economies.
I'm not happy how it's made. Criminalized commodities enrich criminals. We
so-nearly decriminalized pot before Harper. Now we've regressed.

Charles Jeanes,

Nelson, B.C.