Pubdate: Thu, 23 Sep 2010
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2010 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Anthony Peyton Porter

PLANNING

Leading the Sheeple to Slaughter

I went to the recent Chico Planning Commission meeting about medical
cannabis. Paranoia ruled in the race to criminalize behavior.

After learning what other cities have done, highly paid Chico
government staff had put together a set of different levels of
restriction, illustrated by maps complicated into obtuseness, that
were designed to hinder, isolate and restrict the distribution of medicine.

The federal government's campaign against marijuana was a lie from
start to finish, and sheeple still act like pot's a harmful drug-they
just can't believe that they're that wrong. Elvis lives, and there
actually were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, just invisible ones.

The lynchpin of the war on drugs and the catalyst for billions of
dollars in income for government employees for decades is now legal
for some people because it has been proven beyond the shadow of a
doubt that pot is a valuable medicine for a wide range of ailments. It
wouldn't have happened otherwise. Even the American Medical
Association admitted that cannabis deserves further study, which for
the AMA is sobbing hysteria. The sheeple are against it anyway.

The biggest fear comes from imaginary illegal activity near places
that have a lot of cannabis on the premises, either growing or ready
for use. If that happens after there are dispensaries and big grows in
Chico, I'm betting the illegal activity will be because of money, and
that's already everywhere. Regardless, if something untoward happens,
our beneficent protectors could check it out and decide what to do
about it then. At the meeting, the sheeple focused on what they were
afraid of, e.g., an innocent daycare child seeing people who use
marijuana. It was like, OMG.

When I reached my limit, Jon Luvaas, John Merz and the sheeple seemed
to have agreed on no dispensaries within 300 feet of a daycare
facility, since children are susceptible to the lure of marijuana or
piercing of stray bullets, but only at close range. I'm guessing each
dispensary will have to be approved anyway, so the proximity rule is
just suppression for its own sake, the theme of Chico government's
approach to marijuana, as far as I can tell. We'll start out
restrictive and then we'll just see. Maybe we'll loosen up later, and
maybe we won't. Totalitarianism masquerades as caution. Have I
mentioned personality profiles for all public officials?

"[Marijuana] ruined [my friend's] life" was a high point for me.
Judging a life good or bad, successful or ruined, is hard to top. So,
300 feet.

Legalizing marijuana will plunge government satraps, bureaucrats, and
goons throughout cannabis culture, from a plant on the balcony to
hugegantic industrial grows. I'm starting to miss the old days already.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt