George Rebane
We read George Boardman’s 'Nevada County's supervisors cede leadership to sheriff on medical marijuana' in today’s (18jan16) Union on last Tuesday’s BoS MJ prezo by Sheriff Keith Royal et al. Generally it was a good piece, we had some inevitable nits because the changing face of MJ production and consumption in CA is a complicated affair, especially when we translate it down to our county level. And Nevada County being a nationally known source of prime MJ doesn’t help sorting out how we should conduct business in the coming new world of pot.
Readers know that years ago RR came off the fence on drugs and has supported selective and prudent legalization. Since then the debate has grown on how, when, and under what conditions should the county permit medical marijuana (MMJ) and recreational marijuana (RMJ) production and consumption. These considerations have been made even more complicated by the existence of conflicting federal and dynamic state laws re MJ in its various forms. And when we start picking apart all the components of legalizing the growth and consumption of the weed, we wind up as we have, in the weeds. The recent BoS hearing and vote by supervisors on a revised ‘emergency ordnance’ and the upcoming vote on an MJ initiative have not helped resolve anything in the minds of the two major factions – one facilitating its production and use, and the other essentially opposing all parts of the MJ scene in Nevada County.
What I’d like to discuss here is recognizing the real conflict that is hidden underneath the layers of details of MJ grow parameters, neighborhood nuisance factors, and specifics of RMJ and MMJ distribution and consumption. The anti-MJ folks voice legitimate concerns about neighborhood nuisances, crime, underage consumption, etc. And these same people are essentially following the tactics of the anti-gun people in wanting to banish MJ from the county – i.e. make the attendant parts of a facile MJ economy so cumbersome and difficult that it will wind up being ‘constructively banned’.
So let’s be clear, all these details and specifics aren’t the real issue – they comprise the fog that hides what really is on the minds of the anti-MJ people who are mostly right-leaning conservatives, and also what is apparent to the more strategically minded left-leaning progressives. The real issue is the ongoing battle for Nevada County between two very different cultures.
The conservatives want this foothills community to retain its small town, middle America character and values even if we are located in a very liberal ‘left coast state’. The progressives see Nevada County as the next conservative enclave to conquer and convert into something much more receptive to achieving Agenda21 goals. A simplified view of the two contending communities would pit the more traditionally straight-laced, visibly patriotic, capitalistic, gun-toting, church going crowd against a modern version of the Gaia worshipping, drug comforted, secular humanist ‘hippie culture’, that looks forward to a one-world based on a non-western social order.
Both sides believe that introducing a permissive MJ environment into the county is the most effective and fastest way to crack its current character, drive out the conservatives, and paint the county a solid shade of progressive blue. But for some reason we can’t put the contending cultures issue on the table, so we keep talking instead about the number of plants, inside vs outside grows, the smell, water usage, unsavory traffic in the neighborhoods, etc. The real issue here in Nevada County and all over the country (actually all over the world) is the preservation of distinct cultures. How can an established culture successfully defend itself against rapid and unwanted change by the purposive imposition (migration, immigration, colonization, …) of a counter-culture?
The question is answered directly in other parts of the world where our traditions of liberty, property, and security are not practiced – the contending people simply resort to violence and fight it out to see who prevails. The world is still and has been full of such conflicts since days immemorial. I believe that here we would like to find a better way, but that cannot happen if we continue to deny that most of our society’s problems also revolve around clashing cultures.
A better solution involves answering questions such as what rights does a previously established culture have for self-preservation. How can such rights be used to directly address and resolve cultural contentions? In short, in today’s world with more people, facile communication, and easy transport, can our body of law be expanded to recognize that a large landmass of abundant resources no longer suffices to separate large populations with differing values and cultures who once successfully practiced ‘e pluribus unum’ with minimal coercion from the national supra-cultural level?
If so, then such an expanded legal system must provide for the self-determination of distinct cultures that can no longer avoid rubbing shoulders within the borders of a united sovereign nation-state that we can still call America. Else we will soon become yet another country with a single dominant command culture enforced by the government gun while pretending the politically correct lie of a multi-cultural society.
rebanesruminations.com 
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