welcome to pot city!

[mike_c]

A fascinating article in Humboldt County's North Coast Journal about the coming legalization of marijuana. In other short pieces in this issue legalization in California, and other places, is characterized as "inevitable." This is one of the most exciting political developments that I never expected to live to see. Anyway, the linked article is about the need for Humboldt County, California, to brand itself as the Napa Valley of Weed. This is a major issue for me and my family, and an excellent article!

http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2010/03/25/welcome-pot-city/

Welcome to Pot City!
To save the Humboldt County economy from legalization, we have to become the Napa Valley of weed. Here's how.

By Kym Kemp

If you grew up in the Emerald Triangle, marijuana permeates the fabric of your life in ways people from outside the area cannot imagine. It threads throughout much of the social and political aspects of the Humboldt world. But it is with money, money, money that this intertwining is most apparent -- and this financial aspect subtly weaves through even in the most conservative household on the North Coast.

Any business here in Humboldt relies in part on money from the marijuana industry. There isn't a trade or company that doesn't receive a goodly portion of its monthly income either directly or indirectly from cannabis. Even churches receive tithes from people whose jobs wouldn't exist if marijuana money didn't support the framework of the North Coast economy.

Today, an enormous tsunami is poised to drown the economics of this area. If -- and, with an assembly bill and a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana pending, a better word is "when" -- marijuana is legalized, corporations could wrench control of cannabis production from locals and prices could fall. The result for Humboldt could be the failure of many of the small businesses that rely on marijuana money. First, the obvious ones like horticulture companies and head shops will go under. But then the wave will begin to destroy grocery stores and insurance brokers, doctors and dentists, volunteer fire departments and hospices -- for these are indirectly subsidized by the massive influx of marijuana income to the area. Yes, even churches and nursery schools will feel the tidal wave pulling them under. As each business collapses, its employees will quit supporting another level of stores and tradespeople. Then, in turn, those businesses will crumple and pull down another level of commerce.

MUCH more @link!

[Webster Green]

1. Excellent!

I spent 15 years in the Garberville/Redway area, from 1981 to 1996.

Southern Humboldt is an amazing little community!

I'm still sporting a KMUD bumper sticker and I go up to work at 'Reggae on the River' :hippie:

[arcadian]

4. I love the nicknames the locals have for places in Mendo and Humboldt

Garbageville, Satanville, Swillets, Yuckiah

[Nikki Stone1]

2. The one place you'd think be cheering legalization.

Oh man...

Poor Humboldt.

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. Head shops? I should think they'd see an industrial strength boost to business.

I can't imagine why the legalization of marijuana would hurt head shop business.

[Danascot]

5. Until most of the rest of the country leaglizes

pot tourism is going to be an effin' gold mine.

[Oilwellian]

6. I have an uncle in Garberville...

And visited the area a couple of years ago. Even went to the Hemp store mentioned in the article. I could easily retire there and live in bliss the rest of my days. It's absolutely breathtaking and it would be a great vacation spot for marijuana connoisseurs. The redwoods and beaches are great lures for travelers. Hope they can find a way to make an industry for themselves, should it become legalized.

[eridani]

7. And how 'bout them Arcata police logs?

Sometimes they have limericks or haiku. No luck this week, though.

http://www.arcataeye.com/2010/03/cops-pass-up-chance-to-sample-traffic-stopping-breath-%e2%80%93-march-24-2010/

9:11 a.m. The slithy tove business is equally good in Valley West, where one man left his iPod and wallet containing $250 in cash as well as credit cards in his car overnight. His courtesy in leaving the car unlocked for the doorhandle-tryer wasn’t returned, as the passive-aggressive slithy tove rudely left the car door open after reaping the goods within.

11:26 p.m. A man called APD asking why his phone had been disconnected. He was advised that he was in fact on the phone at the time, and police don’t have any information on his phone account anyway. He apologized and said he was going to call the phone company.

11:31 p.m. The man called again about his broken phone.

11:43 p.m. After more calls, police visited the man’s mobile home. He was advised that he’d probably have more success dealing with the phone problem after he sobered up.

12:30 p.m. A vehicle on Alliance Road was broken into and things that didn’t exist until recently were stolen – an MP3 player and GPS unit.

2:20 p.m. More cat poop throwage on Beverly Drive, where someone has a big issue with other people’s pets.

10:30 p.m. A tove committing a vehicle ransack in Ribeiro Court wasn’t slithy enough to elude detection by a resident, and the chase was on. Dropping a wallet in the street as he fled, the thief was pursued by police through an adjacent field, past the hospital and west onto the Bottoms, where he slipped into darkness.

11:17 p.m. A sub-sub-sub genius made it his business to bellow a very upsetting racial epithet on 12th Street between H and K streets.

[DCKit]

8. Here comes WalMart* n/t

[MilesColtrane]

9. Isn't Pot City right next to Flushing Meadows?