Pubdate: Thu, 17 Sep 2015
Source: Reno News & Review (NV)
Copyright: 2015, Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/issues/reno/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2524

YES, IN YOUR BACKYARD

You want to see how democracy is not supposed to work? Take a look at 
the hysteria that's going on down at the Washoe County Commission.

A couple of hundred NIMBYs are concerned about a medical marijuana 
dispensary being placed in the Galena Lodge. Public commenters have 
chosen a scorched earth strategy, attacking and threatening 
individual commissioners, particularly Kitty Jung, despite the 
chairwoman's frequent admonishments to act like mannerly adults. 
They're advocating a "We're inside, close the door to development behind us."

Many people in Washoe County remember what the Mt. Rose Highway 
looked like before developers destroyed that area. Many people are 
attacking commissioners on the basis that somehow a new business in 
an existing space will hurt the scenic views of that highway. It's ludicrous.

This is yet another example of manufactured hysteria. People are 
positing all sorts of irrational scenarios as though there were some 
factual evidence to support them. People are going to get their 
medicine and go out behind the building into the national forest to 
spark up? Really, has that been a big problem around the country? Law 
enforcement will be unable to enforce drug laws? Probably pretty hard 
to convince the Washoe County sheriff's office or the Reno Police 
Department of that fact. How about the precipitous drop in property 
values? As the economy has improved around the country, but 
particularly in Washoe County, property values have been 
skyrocketing-including in upscale areas like Galena where many 
residents have been known on occasion to toke up.

But it's hysteria. There's little truth to the anti-dispensary 
rhetoric. And while it's hard to make a blanket statement, any time 
wealthy people attack a program designed to help the sick and needy, 
saying they're doing it to protect "the children," the delicate 
veneer of selflessness can be scraped off with a fingernail. The 
Galena location, remember, keeps it away from any schools.

Here's the truth of the matter. The vast majority of those people 
moved into those houses well after the medical marijuana laws passed 
this state. For those who've forgotten, medical marijuana passed in 
this state by the will of the people. It was a citizen's initiative 
first passed in 1998 by 241,463 votes in favor and then again in 2000 
by 65.38 percent, 381,947 voters, which forced the Legislature to 
pass enabling legislation. The Nevada Legislature, following the 
direction of exactly the sort of hysterical, self-entitled 
fearmongers who are attacking the Washoe County Commissioners, 
created the most restrictive medical marijuana laws in the nation, 
specifically designed to subvert the will of the people and to 
prevent sick people from getting medicine. It took 15 years to 
straighten them out.

The building where this dispensary will be housed has been a bar and 
restaurant for years. The problems caused by drunk drivers are 
well-known to society. Tens of thousands people have left that 
building after drinking alcohol. Nobody will use marijuana there. It 
virtually guarantees that more sober people will be leaving that 
parking lot than in years previous. On-site smoking is illegal, and 
it's in the proprietors' best interest to ensure it doesn't happen. 
And just to be logical, why would anyone use marijuana illegally, 
when all they have to do is drive home to use it legally? To assume 
sick people are some reefer-addled junkies unable to make it home to 
take their medicine is simply absurd, and a denial of the hundreds of 
studies that show the beneficial properties of cannabis.

This hysterical NIMBYism isn't helping anyone and can't be supported 
by the Washoe County Commissioners.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom