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Catch 22 in humboldt county

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posted on Mar, 25 2010 @ 03:42 PM
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Hard to do with the subject at hand but i do not wish to turn this into a pro/con argument about legalization. I really do not want to discuss legalization at all but i would like to draw people's attention to this story.



www.google.com...

If California legalizes marijuana, they say, it will drive down the price of their crop and damage not just their livelihoods but the entire economy along the state's rugged northern coast.

Local residents are so worried that pot farmers came together with officials in Humboldt County for a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday night where civic leaders, activists and growers brainstormed ideas for dealing with the threat. Among the ideas: turning the vast pot gardens of Humboldt County into a destination for marijuana aficionados, with tours and tastings — a sort of Napa Valley of pot.

Many were also enthusiastic about promoting the Humboldt brand of pot. Some discussed forming a cooperative that would enforce high standards for marijuana and stamp the county's finest weed with an official Humboldt seal of approval.

Pot growers are nervous because a measure that could make California the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use will appear on the ballot in November. State officials certified Wednesday that the initiative got enough signatures.

The law, if approved, could have a profound effect on Humboldt County, which has long had a reputation for growing some of the world's best weed.

In recent years, law enforcement agents have seized millions of pot plants worth billions of dollars in Humboldt and neighboring counties. And that is believed to be only a fraction of the crop.

"We've lived with the name association for 30 or 40 years and considered it an embarrassment," said Mark Lovelace, a Humboldt County supervisor. But if legalization does happen, he said, the Humboldt County name becomes the region's single most important asset.


and this one


www.mantecabulletin.com...
So after decades of leading the charge to legalize pot, the Marijuana Mecca is having second thoughts. It explains why you are starting to see stickers popping up around the region that read, “Save Humboldt County - keep pot illegal.”

This has prompted pot growers to start doing something that pot growers rarely do - meet openly with elected leaders in a standing room only gathering to brainstorm ways that Humboldt can deal with the threat.

That’s right. The pot growers, not law enforcement, think legalizing marijuana is a threat.


So now after years of "it should be legal d00d." It is looking like humbolt county is in a catch 22. They want to keep it illegal, thats right the number one hot spot for green activisim wants the exact oppisite of what they have been complaining about this entire time. Humbolt county has already been discussing things like a name brand for their product to keep the price as high as possible if it becomes legal. So the age old argument "if it was legal the price would go down" might be true however the activists are going to be the ones fighting to keep the price at the current level.
So come time to vote on this expect the regular propoganda about how bad and dangerous it is for you and the economy but just keep in mind it will not be comming from the right-wing conservatives or the NWO, it will be comming from the people who have been telling everyone how much better things would be if it was legal.

Once again i do not wish to discuss legalization here.



posted on Mar, 25 2010 @ 04:01 PM
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I had commented with friends about the notion that various environmental groups and charities may not acutally want solutions to the causes they advocate as those problems are their very life's blood. This is evidence in support of the general principle of activism attempting to sustain itself for its own sake and enrichment.



posted on Mar, 25 2010 @ 04:17 PM
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reply to post by EnlightenUp
 


Well said. I think this is true with every "activist" group. They get money to reach their goal, keep in mind non-proffit is a legal deffinition the american red cross is non-proffit but everyone who works there gets paid.
So you have a group that is tied together and functioning as a group with alligned purposed and goals and some of the people happen to make money off this. Now once the goal is reached there is no more goal no more purpose and no more money. So when and if legalization happens the activists will either have to fight to keep it illegal or very restricted on who can grow and sell or they will dissapear and no longer make money. It is funny i never thought the conspiracy would be going on on both sides.
"The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous"-1984



posted on Mar, 25 2010 @ 04:19 PM
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reply to post by zaiger
 


I dont think legalization really matters. Either way, some people will be out of jobs, and some people will be better off financially.

My cousin lives up there, and every trip Ive taken to visit him included sampling and touring the area's cash crops.

He shares the sentiments of the people cited in your article. But only from a selfish standpoint which he'll be the first to admit. According to him, if it becomes decriminalized, the individual grower will suffer financially, but the state as a whole will be far better off. But, that would be only temporary. Growers consider themselves farmers, and botanists, and pride themselves on their knowledge and attention to detail. Farming is a skill very few in this country still possess. You could take the same techniques used to grow pot, and apply them to basically any crop. Avocados for example, are extremely expensive to buy in stores! That would make a farmer as much money as pot if done correctly.

He's noted already that in the past several years, his business has gone south just from the "medical" cards basically anyone can obtain. In this sense, pot has already been legal for some time. Any average Joe can make up a story and get one of these medical cards, allowing them to smoke and grow, in some cases even sell, marijuana legally. Because of this, many many more people are growing and selling. People even take out ads in the newspaper promoting pot delivery businesses for people with medical cards. Of course with more competition and less risk, comes lower prices and less profits.

To sum it all up, my cousin who has grown, and sold this plant for ten years, no longer sees it as a realistic way to make a living. Whether it ever could have been is debatable


Interestingly enough he has applied to all of the law enforcement agencies up there and wants to be a cop.....
go figure



posted on Mar, 25 2010 @ 04:35 PM
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reply to post by zaiger
 


From some that I know on the inside, I suggest noone should ever, ever think it isn't profit-driven just because the organizations may be non-profit. Someone always pays themselves the profits, just to make sure there is no profit.


This aberration does not nescessarily make me opposed to activism for good causes. But, one thing I also notice is an apparent lack of pointing out successes, rather than merely bringing new problems to attention. For instance, I've seen some improvements in the conditions or the Great Lakes, but little if anything is said.

Noone should hesitate to cry foul here when it is all too transparent that they're behaving exactly like the system they purport to rally against.



posted on Mar, 28 2010 @ 03:42 PM
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The price will never come down for the consumer if it is legalized; especially up here in Canada because of the taxes. Right now it is tax exempt, but legalize it and we would be helping fund health care and politician's expensive sojourns with every purchase we made.

It may well be true tho that the grower, as usual, will end up with less in their pockets for their efforts as the government and middlemen take an ever larger share of receipts.

You didn't want this discussed, but I would favour legalization without regulation. Just let it be grown and sold and let the market dictate who succeeds.



posted on Apr, 8 2010 @ 11:12 AM
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This isn't exactly a Humboldt County thing, either.

Fact of the matter is, a lot of people are making a (better than good) living off of growing cannabis and selling it under the current model we're living under. From Maine to Texas to Arizona to Kentucky to Florida to California... cannabis never was and never will be a Cali-exclusive... it's not even a plant native to this continent, but it's been traveling the world longer than Christianity has been a concept.

So.. if this cannabis phenomenon encompasses the entire world... we are going to end up with an enormous spectrum of cannabis sellers and growers... some of these sellers and growers are cut from the same greedy money grubbin' slab of clay that our Wall St. bankers are cut from, that is fact.

The people that are taking this position are so stinking greedy they would rather see a grower get 10 years in the Federal Prison system before they gave up their tax free profit margin. That's wrong, on many levels.

They don't stand for common sense, they don't stand for improving society, they don't stand for moral justice... they do NOT represent the cannabis movement as a whole.

There's child molesting priests, there's megalomaniacs on Wall St, there's sex offenders in your neighborhood... and some pot smokers are greedy... yup, there's a little stink in every pile if you look for it.

Trust me, there are millions if not billions saying "legalize it, dude" and they mean it with all their heart because it will improve our society from the point we are at right now.

[edit on 8-4-2010 by ImaNutter]



posted on Apr, 13 2010 @ 02:31 AM
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Humboldt native speaking here...

Welcome to Pot City!

An article from one of our free, local publications on this very subject, from the insider's perspective. It's a good read.

Legalization would be disastrous for Humboldt County, as a very large percentage of our economy is based on the money circulation revolving around pot. I think it would benefit society greatly but it is not the safety-net that the California is looking for. It will help, sure, but it's not going to make everything magically better.

It's late and I have school tomorrow, I bid thee all good night!

NEXUS



posted on Apr, 13 2010 @ 03:06 AM
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Against Mexican flake marijuana these people have no problem.
the Mexican flake is so low grade that its like the difference between cheap wines and high grade Napa wines

It will be a problem with collecting tax on the Mexican crops being grown illegally on public land.
The illegal crops will be sold by the Mexican crops will be sold and the taxes pocketed by the growers.

Even now most people with a medical marijuana script do not buy Mexican flake, they go to the medical marijuana dispensaries.

Few if any buy Mexican flake.
If it becomes legal in Calif I see most of the Mexican grow operations going out of business because of the low grade product they are selling.

The Mexican growers will have to vastly improve the grade of there crop or go out of business.

They will also have to buy land to grow there crops on and quit growing on public lands. this will still be illegal and a arrestable offence.








 
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