For those of you unaware, I live in what's called the Emerald Triangle. Live in the US and smoke pot? It was probably grown within a hundred mile radius of where I live. I came across a local article in The Willits News that really got me mad. It was basically accusing the hippies who travel through our way to help with marijuana harvests by trimming (or what's also called clipping) it, of terrible things. I'll post the article and then my response. I thought it would be an interesting peek for those curious as to what it's like to live in my Nor Cal sub culture.
Soon summer and fall will be here...with the pungent smell of pot in the air. Our unwanted guests, the self-proclaimed "people of the street" will be flooding our town looking for trim work in the booming pot-growing businesses that surround our communit
The Willits News
Article Launched: 04/02/2008 10:46:37 AM PDT
Personally, I dread the thought of the "street people" and their dogs filling our parks, our creeks (behind many residents' homes), our parking lots and fields, buzzing around like flies at our local food establishments, grocery stores and our library.
They stay because our local self-interest pot growers will hire them to trim their harvest. They stay because we have a food bank and Saint Anthony's generous Daily Bread.
We are all aware that "street people" can be rude, threatening and dirty. It is embarrassing to drive through town and see many of them with their signs "Will Work for Pot." It certainly gives tourist driving through our town a great impression of Willits. (Sarcasm here).
These "street people" and their grungy dogs, camp in, poop in, and throw trash in our creeks, parks and on private property. They use and abuse our community and want freedom from responsibilities, yet have no problem abusing social services.
I will clarify there is a difference between the "street bums" and homeless individuals/families who want to help themselves but need temporary assistance.
Many citizens in the community complain to law enforcement, but law enforcement can only do so much. The "street people" have legal rights.
We, as citizens, must come up with ideas and hopefully solutions to help discourage our unwanted guests. I suggest we write suggestions to the editor of The Willits News, since law enforcement and our city council do read The Willits News. I can't
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imagine them not reading recommendations that may help towards a common goal for our community.
So, here are a few of my suggestions to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department, the Willits Police Department, and Willits City Council:
1. Property owners need to post "private property/keep out" signs. Check with local law enforcement on trespassing laws.
2. Fast-food establishments should have a policy to not give out free food to the street people.
3. Fast-food establishments should have a policy that "if you do not eat here, you can't camp out here." I won't go to Jack in the Box in the summer or fall. All the street people camp out on their outdoor tables.
4. All grocery stores should post signs "no vagrancy/no soliciting" at their business.
5. Our Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force should donate a small percentage of monies seized at drug raids to our local food bank and to Our Daily Bread to compensate them for their struggle to feed the "street people" who are here as a work force for local pot growers. Remember, these pot growers contribute nothing to our community. When they buy things, it's self-serving only. It's only fair a bit of the drug money be contributed back to the community.
6. The two senior complexes should and need to hire 24-hour security guards to give our community seniors a sense of security. They should not feel threatened or afraid.
These are suggestions I hope will be considered by the community. I encourage this community to pull together and come up with some solutions.
Terri Cader
Willits
My posted response:
I wanted to jump in and comment on this article. Number one, these "street people" as you call them are not lazy bums. They have an environmental and social ethic that prevents them from living the traditional American lifestyle. Here are some points I need to get off my chest.
1. These seasonal travelers in our community (hereafter called STs) rescue street dogs and care and feed for them even when they can barely afford to feed themselves. This is why they often have dogs with them.
2. STs are not exculisivly here for the trim work, they are often passing by on their way to outdoor festivals where they make a living selling handcrafted goods.
3. STs often do not "smell." Using natural soaps and deoderants that wont give them cancer or pollute the environment they often times smell like PEOPLE not the chemical fragrances we are all so accustom too.
4. STs are from a culture with propably one of the highest regards for Elders you will find in the US. Accusing STs of scaring seniors is RIDICULOUS.
5. If local growers weren't growing and trimming wasn't available work locally how on earth do you think families here could afford $4,000 mortages?? We are lucky to live in a small town with a thriving local business community. Every time pot money is spent to buy a pair of earings, a dress, a pair of shoes, dog food, a book, a CD, etc it supports our wonderful mom and pop shops WHICH could not survive without it.
6. Every local trim job I've seen and heard about (and there have been many) provide healthy, usually vegetarian, meals to their trimmers. Accusing trimmers of draining our resources, again, is simply a false assumption made in ignorance.
7. I count my blessings everyday that I live in an area where we have a way to take control of our community back through the dollars generated by pot. I'm grateful we don't live in a community where we don't stand a fighting chance against corporate and government control. I know that pot, and the sales tax it generates, provides for myself and my family access to local food, art, community events, alternative schools, naturopathic doctors and alternative healers, handcrafts, etc we would not have access to elsewhere.
I'm really shocked that The Willits News would even print this. If this article had accused a race of people of these things, or a certain age group, or a certain religion, no one would publish this article. Here this author has gotten away with it by not being specifically racist, sexist, or agist - however this article is still just as cruel and ignorant. If you're truely interested in community Terri Cader you wouldn't be so openly discriminitory against one of the sub-cultures in our midst who actually practice what they preach and feel called to live an alternative lifestyle.
Ugh, Terri, just turn your TV back on, crap in the fresh water in your indoor toilet, shop at Wal-Mart, live in your environmentally destructive cement and wood housing, use your aluminum filled deodarant and your cancer causing shampoos from Rite Aid so you smell like "Melons" or whatever pleases you more then the smell of your own body, and do us all a huge favor and SHUT UP.
