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Greenbud

It's time again to seek and destroy

Heaven forfend West Virginia weed mature unmolested

July 29, 2004 | Dave Peyton, Daily Mail columnist | Charleston Daily Mail

In the weeks to come, you're going to hear about the exercise in futility known as the marijuana harvest, not by those who grow it but by law enforcement officers who have better things to do.

They'll spend millions tracking down the plants with airplanes and four-wheelers and millions harvesting and burning them. And with all that effort, they'll get maybe 10 percent of the crop.

First and foremost, I am not a pot smoker. I used to be, just as I used to drink gallons of beer and smoke a couple of packs of cigarettes every day. Now my only addiction is nicotine chewing gum.

I suppose I have a bit of an addictive personality, but if I can limit my addiction to chewing gum, I feel blessed.

I don't advise anyone to smoke pot, but I know that perhaps 80 percent of all the kids in America are going to try it and, unlike President Clinton, they'll inhale.

I also know that, contrary to popular belief, smoking a joint isn't going to lead to harder drugs for the vast majority of them.

I also know that most of those who overindulge will simply eat four or five bags of potato chips and go to sleep. Some will do things under its influence to get them into trouble. That's why it's best to avoid the weed.

For kids in this area, access to marijuana is abundant, especially rural kids who can drop a few seeds beside a meandering creek in May and return in September to harvest the crop.

The old hippie adage "God grows his own," is more than appropriate here in Mountain Mama.

In case you don't know it, the climate in these hills and hollows is perfect for marijuana cultivation. Plenty of rain, plenty of heat and humidity at the correct time in late summer and plenty of cover to disguise the plants makes for a great harvest most years.

Word on the street is that this will be yet another bumper crop year.

My son was never more surprised than when he was in a Detroit watering hole a few years ago where marijuana was as available as beer. An entrepreneur brought a bag of pot into the establishment and announced it was "Meigs County gold," after which he heard the approbations of the assemblage.

For the uninitiated, the marijuana that comes from Meigs County, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from Mason County, W. Va., is legendary, especially in northern climes, as my son learned that day in Detroit.

Considering how little marijuana is actually found and destroyed by local gendarmes, is the money spent on the seek-and-destroy missions really worth it? Couldn't that money be better spent on programs aimed at teen use of drugs, particularly the really dangerous drugs?

Or perhaps other dangerous teen practices such as riding four-wheelers without a helmet or unprotected sex? I suspect more teens are endangered by those practices than smoking a joint or two.

A few police officers have leveled with me and told me they're not convinced the late summer hunt for pot is worth the time and money that's invested. But they get money earmarked for marijuana eradication and they must use it that way.

What a waste.

__________________
"I believe in the near future, the government will use anti-drug hysteria to set up a police state."
-author William S. Burroughs, 1947

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Suetaz

I don't agree with this. I know some parents that allow their teens to smoke weed because they would prefer they did weed over alcohol. Alcohol usage makes people more aggressive, weed usually makes people more passive and happy. A lot of parents know that weed is safer for their kids than booze. Most parents also know that teenagers do plenty of stupid things to get into trouble while completely sober, so what's a little weed going to hurt? If anything, it might keep them from getting into trouble.

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psthbng

Greenbud, I have to agree with Suetaz, The third sentence was overkill

Suetaz

Hunh? psthbng, were you stoned when you left this post? I'm glad you agree, but Greenbud just posted the article for us to comment on, she didn't write it. I don't get what you mean by 'the third sentence was overkill'. It could be because I'm not stoned at the moment...

I DO agree with the author on this. Whether LEO's agree with the laws or not, they don't have any choice in the matter but to carry out marijuana eradication when theyare told to. It's too bad that LEO's can't speak out about their disagreement with the marijuana laws for fear of reprisals from their superiors. If the US were truly a free speech country, people wouldn't be afraid to speak out about marijuana. It seems like there are 2 kinds of 'free speech', free speech the Bush administration wants to hear and free speech they don't want to hear. Anything to do with marijuana, they don't want to hear or anything bad about Bush.