It’s back-to-school time for county students and teachers. The yellow buses returned to the roads last week, and summer officially ended for thousands of families as they shifted their weekly routines to the new school bell schedule.
For the rest of us, there are new lesson plans as well. The study topics include science, health, politics, law and order, environmental research and philosophy.
Whether we like it or not, we are all enrolled in the school of cannabis. Our neighborhoods and communities have become living laboratories in a social experiment to make marijuana legal.
Last week in this newspaper, we previewed cannabis lesson plans in our special report, “Cannabis in Sonoma County.” We reported on changing laws, emerging industries, environmental problems, new roles for women, possible new health products and more. We can promise everyone lots of homework. (You can find this special section at www.sonomawest.com.)
We voted in November 2016 for Proposition 64 to end the legal prohibition against adult use of cannabis. Some of us wanted fewer restrictions for our personal recreational use of pot, and others voted with the hope of ending the violence and rip-offs associated with the illegal black market. There were many other reasons behind our votes for or against Prop. 64 as well.
Those of us with more honest appraisals knew the new 68-page Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) would come with many more questions than answers. We knew a new multi-billion dollar industry would take root — for good, bad or some of both.
We fretted that some neighborhoods would be adversely impacted, but we hoped our local governments would make it all workable. No one was willing to predict what the continued federal ban on pot cultivation, use or sale would mean, except that banking rules would be a total mess.
So far, the lessons seem confusing, and the early test results are C-minus at best. The county board of supervisors and their land use planners are trying to keep neighborhoods safe while welcoming the new billion-dollar (and taxable) crop and industry. The nine incorporated cities in Sonoma County all have different sets of laws, tax structures and permit processes.
If one of the ultimate goals of Prop. 64 was to eliminate the illegal black market, that test score so far is an ‘F.’ So far only 18 new cannabis businesses have been approved by the county, where some estimates suggest there are 5,000 pot farms hidden in garages, backyards, remote rural hideaways, old barns and extra bedrooms.
Illicit outdoor pot gardens have been found where there is excessive use of pesticides, forest destruction, watershed diversions and other environmental damage. So much for marijuana being a healing herb or symbol of peace and harmony.
Even bigger stakes are at play with our cannabis conundrum and pot puzzle. Sonoma County’s decades-old cannabis community has been made up of thousands of small gardens and operations. New county rules, if approved Aug. 28 by the supervisors, will require 10-acre minimum properties for legal cultivation. Many fear large corporations will dominate the future of Sonoma County’s cannabis industry.
Getting to truths and solid answers about our cannabis future has been a real challenge. Noisy public hearings in the county board of supervisors’ chamber isn’t where you go for wisdom or useful lessons.
In July, the supervisors created a 20-member Cannabis Advisory Group, which held its first public monthly meeting this week in Santa Rosa. The group is charged with studying land use permitting, tax policy, enforcement and county revenue expenditures. It is supposed to be a liaison between industry, patients, other local governments and the community at large.
We suspect the advisory group’s monthly “classroom” will be very well attended by anyone hoping to ace their cannabis quiz.
