Cannabis invaders

On our most recent visit to the state capitol in Sacramento, we witnessed the mounting waves of an invading army, a strange confederacy of hired-gun lobbyists, backwoods entrepreneurs, green-tinged lawyers and cannabis-sniffing capitalists.
They were not hiding or waiting for a sneak attack. The lobbyists had already joined the ranks of nearly 2,000 other registered lobbyists. The lawyers were visiting the offices of elected legislators and helping to write new laws. The capitalists were smoking cigars (tobacco) and buying dinners and votes.
It will be us, the voters, who will vote to “legalize” marijuana — most likely next November 2016. But it will be these invading cannabis clans that will write — and pay for — all the new laws and marketplace rules that will define a much different California.
Make no mistake about it, new marijuana laws will change Sonoma County’s economy, criminal justice system, tourism attractions and how we will teach our children. We shouldn’t be surprised when it happens, but it is not likely we will be prepared for it. There will be jobs, funny-named local businesses, taxes to collect and a different seriousness inside our drug courts.
It has been 20 years since Sonoma County joined California voters and approved the medical use of marijuana. Since that time, we have left the laws half-finished, allowing for outlaw violence and killings in some places and incarceration for victimless-transgressions in other places.
Growing pot — both licit and the other kind — has become ubiquitous here. It is estimated to be a $2 billion industry in California and it is a sizeable side income for thousands of local households across almost all our neighborhoods. We know this to be true and we “wink, wink” about it.
Legislators, like our own state senator Mike McGuire, are seeking to add some reason and regulation to this semi-outlaw economy. McGuire has written a Medical Marijuana Public Safety and Environmental Protection Act (SB 643) to curtail illegal growing on public land and calling for all commercial cannabis to be grown organically by 2022. Local Assemblyman Jim Wood has also proposed positive reform in separate legislation (AB243).
Meanwhile, at least four other proposed marijuana law packages are moving through government hearings in Sacramento these days. One is supported by the League of California Cities, supporting the creation of a new Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation. A different proposal would add pot patrols and licensing to the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) bureau.
But these legislative hearings and regulatory turf wars are not what the invasion in Sacramento is really about. This is a Wild West shoot-out for control over a mega-billion dollar industry that not long ago was the exclusive domain of laid-back hippies and groovy middlemen.
Now there is the California Cannabis Industry Association and the Emerald Growers Association. Associate members include Medmen, Bud & Roses, CannaBiz, Dark Heart Nursery, Auntie Delores, Xternal and others. It’s not why he wanted to get elected, but Senator McGuire represents the largest marijuana growing region in America.
After voters “legalize” it, who will we all be buying it from? Remember when America ended the last Prohibition? The bootleggers lost and the well-placed corporate distillers won. This time a very valuable industry — the medical cannabis clinics — could get caught in the middle.
Sonoma County elected officials, city councils and law enforcement need to wake up and get organized. In Humboldt County, the board of supervisors has appointed three ad hoc committees to work on medical clinic issues, environmental problems and new tax collection models. The same action is needed here.
Marijuana laws must be fixed. The medical value of cannabis should be validated and secured. Post-prohibition laws need to be put in place to protect children and public safety.
More leadership by local elected officials, like McGuire’s and Wood’s, is needed now to write the best outcomes for our part of post-pot-Prohibition California.
— Rollie Atkinson