Maybe the Time has Come

Maybe the Time Has Come

Wanted: License number of bus that ran over me yesterday. At least, that’s the way I feel this morning, after working with cement, sand and gravel all day Thursday, not to mention the mattock, shovel, and big iron, all tools of the trade of a much younger person than I.

I enjoy the work immensely, even though it leaves me aching in parts of my body I had forgotten existed. The first thing I did upon arising (later than normal at 1:40) was take a teaspoon of cannabis oil. I would have taken two but I am almost out. 

Were I to recommend this oil to someone else, I would say start with a few drops under your tongue, and go from there. I, however, have built up a bit of tolerance, so I tend to favor the sledge hammer effect. This is not work for the faint of heart.

The project I am working on is strengthening the foundation of my workshop, so as to be able to complete the next baby step in the process of cannabis regulation. My home is all legal but when I built the workshop, about ten years ago, I bypassed the building department.

In point of fact I bypassed the building department in the original construction of my home, also, but got red-tagged as a result of the fallout with the rise and fall of the Wellspring Educational Collective. There is simply minimal motivation to involve the county on any level, if it can be avoided.

That being said, I welcome the regulation that comes with the recognition that cannabis is no longer illegal. I use it every day of my life, as the sole means of containing my mood spectrum disorder, and I grow it so that others who have a medicinal need for it, can access this gentle giant of herbs.

I welcome regulation, even with its interminable number of logistical nightmares, any one of which is enough to cause one to wonder if this is indeed, the best course of action. However, having existed within the shadow of the law for forty years now, it’s high time, pun intended, that we have been given the thumbs-up, to our green thumbs.

The hoops we must jump through, and the obstacles we must hurtle include water rights issues, environmentally sound farming practices and going through the process of bringing all structures up to code, amongst many others. At least we built them accordingly, using appropriate materials, except that we did not put in a perimeter foundation, going with a simple pier foundation, instead. 

Now I am wrapping the corners by digging the footings and pouring concrete, so that I can install skirting around the bottom of the structure, helping to bolster the sheer strength of the workshop. The ground drops away as much as five feet over the width of the shop, leaving the back side in need of the sheer strength that half-inch plywood, securely nailed off, provides.

We are also building a different generator storage unit, so as to be able to comply with the regulation that calls for the genny to be on a slab, one with a lip around it. This will be at least the fifth different storage area I have employed over the past 35 years, for a generator. 

The Mendocino County sheriff
who came out, was pleasant
and posed for me when I
asked him

Hurry up summer so that our solar panels can do the heavy lifting!

I noted a lively discussion on Facebook the other day, concerning the pros and cons of following through on the requirements of cannabis regulation. Whether you hate it or love it (as I do), and whether it strains your patience to the max, or not, regulation has arrived.

I rather enjoyed having the sheriff come out to the farm last summer, to check out everything we have going, and give us his signature on the appropriate form. It meant we were in compliance and no longer outlaws. I never felt like an outlaw, I gotta say, but nonetheless, I do not want to "tell it to the judge."

There has been a lot of environmental damage done in the past that must not be forgotten. We are paying the price for the sins of an unregulated industry, so that price is high. 

With this in mind, we must pay homage to those who have spent countless hours trying to create feasible cannabis regulation, because without them, we would be at the mercy of whatever the Mendocino County Supervisors would have come up with on their own.

Though not everyone agrees, as one facebooker put it, “Maybe the time has come.”

You think?