Board Game with No Rules
“I saw your son on TV-he looked real good.” The words were posted on my Face/Book wall when I got up this morning at 2:35. I knew that Casey had gone down to Ukiah, Friday afternoon, for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s press conference over the Island Mountain cannabis raids, so I gathered that he had found an outlet for his message.
Wearing his “I am a farmer” tee shirt, he had set out to express his outrage at the terrorist tactics currently being employed by the state and county law enforcement personnel. Though photos indicate rampant disrespect to the environment and the number of plants is significant, the presence of armored vehicles and a para-military approach is absolutely unnecessary when confronting farmers.
Casey has gone on record as saying, “There is much work to do to build a pathway forward. Using law enforcement to try and regulate industry is like banging nails with a saw. We’re all frustrated; we need sensible regulations from the state of California.”
Casey and countless others have been diligently laboring to seek said regulation on both the state and local levels. He has been stampeding to all sectors of NorCal with the message that cannabis farmers need to gather round and gear up for the upcoming battle with Corporate America, for the right to continue to grow [medicinal] cannabis.
HappyDay Farms has a personal agenda that accompanies the public one and that is Annie’s health issues. Battling both kidney cancer and thyroid cancer, she has found that juicing cannabis has had significant positive impact, and she is has been buoyed by the thought that she can rely on the farm to provide her with this medicine.
Annie has no tolerance for THC and the juicing bypasses this component. I have no such compunctions. I tried Corporate ‘Merica’s solution for bipolarism, and it was ugly. I find that cannabis drags me out of the depressive abysses, and pulls me back down to earth when the mania sends me aloft.
I have reasonably good control over my illness because I am an extraordinarily apt pupil, and I was paying attention when I attended the thirty or so cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) sessions, but I do need the cannabis to help stabilize my mood spectrum disorder.
That the two of us should have to live in fear that our medicine will be confiscated, especially since the farm has been so politically active in the fight for legitimacy, is reprehensible. In fact it has accomplished for Annie what nothing else has been able to do: It has made her angry.
She has taken the stance that when the forces of oppression become too overwhelming, and our way of life is threatened, that civil disobedience becomes the most logical course of action. Anyone who knows Annie, knows this is pretty extreme.
When I asked her what this might look like, she talks of chaining herself to the big chipper which accompanies the task force. She has all of her paperwork laminated and clearly displayed on the front gate, which is locked for the first time in thirty-three years because she wants any law enforcement personnel to have to “break in” to our compound.
My sweetest of apple blossoms has her proverbial panties in a bunch.
The only way to compete with Big Ag is to establish the validity of connoisseur cannabis, so that just as the wine industry has been able to establish its legitimacy, so should the cannabis farmers be able to assume their rightful place at the head of the line.
In order to do so, regulation must occur. As Casey wrote, “I see a hopeless and frustrating standoff between farmers and law enforcement because we are playing a board game with no rules. Only it’s not a game. It’s people’s lives, it’s the fish in the stream, and it’s the future of our economies. One for all and all for one; together our world will stand, divided our world will fall.”
Annie and I taught our sons to question authority but to do so with respect. We are proud of Casey, Nathaniel and all who fight the tyranny of injustice, and do so for the betterment of all.
We call that being community contributors.
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