A GROWING PROBLEM

We won't lack public involvement in this week's long-overdue
consideration of Arcata's marijuana grow house situation. Rather, the
problem will be sorting through the noise and chaff to find the
helpful comment.

On the few previous occasions when the council and Planning
Commission have even touched on the issue, they've been preemptively
castigated as heartless oppressors. The reason for this is that the
Compassionate Use Act is being abused by some to grow marijuana for profit.

There's big money involved -- very big. So expect distracting
arguments of every sort, engineered to preserve the dangerously
dysfunctional but for some, profitable status quo.

First, California's progressive Compassionate Use Act must be
protected. Our federal government's insane refusal to properly manage
the medical use of cannabis is but one of the ongoing obscenities its
now conducting against its citizens and humanity in general.

Irrational, pernicious superstitions about marijuana have set up a
legal situation ideal for black market profiteers. Over the years,
they've figured out all the angles, from street-level resale of
prescribed cannabis to use of surrogates to obtain licenses to
legitimize industrial grows.

The related phenomenon of suburban grow houses is consuming housing
built for human beings while burning some of the houses down. There's
got to be a more sensible way for people to get medication that they need.

Preserving compassion, protecting human rights, property rights and
neighborhood safety with no help at all from the federal government
is a huge but necessary challenge for our City Council. It will
require ideas and cooperation, plus more than a little good will.
Those things exist, and hopefully will amount to more than just a few
needles in a haystack of distraction.