The Price of Poker

This is the second of a series dealing with the War on Cannabis, of which I am a veteran. I fought the Law back in the mid-eighties and I won a battle, but it was to take more than thirty years before the war finally ended.

Campaign Against Marijuana Plantings, speaking of
domestic terrorist groups. 

We’ve all had rotten Mondays, but none will compare with that of July 23, 1985, the day the police helicopter came out of the sky. When the bird set down in the field below our house, about 500 feet away, Gluten-Free Mama did not wait around to find out what they were selling. Five months pregnant with SmallBoy, she picked up 15-month-old BenJamIn, grabbed almost three-year-old HeadSodBuster by the hand, and booked it up our quarter-mile-long driveway.

Knowing the helicopter was discharging a crew of invaders lent wings to her feet, but what GF Mama did not know was whether or not ground vehicles were involved. Not wanting to meet any law enforcement personnel coming down the driveway, she went two-thirds of the way up, and then cut across, overland.

She was aiming for my folks’s home, located two parcels over, maybe a fifteen-minute walk under normal conditions. There was nothing normal about this trek, with two terrified toddlers and her being five months along, not to mention the fact that she did not know how many men had landed, and where they had gone.

Er, I wasn't there, actually, but I'm reasonably certain that
this is the chopper that came out of the sky. Yes, it must be.

It goes without saying that the parents were acutely aware of what was going on, the whirlybird having landed in the field between our two homes. It was also apparent that the marauders had no interest in their spot. 

Why authorities were interested in the 33 plants in the manzanita, was not quite so apparent. Was it because they were just working the area, and we were in their path? Was it the reasonably easy access? Or could it possibly have been because there was a home on this parcel, one that made land forfeiture a distinct possibility?

In an era not that far removed from cannabis being grown in fields like corn, there were still plenty of big grows occurring. The reality was, however, that these were grows happening in the middle of nowhere, with there being no assets on-site to sweeten the pot.

Additionally, still on the front burner was the fact that a couple had been busted a short distance up Bell Springs Road the previous fall. They had had their property and home confiscated in like manner as us, for fewer than 100 plants.

We had been following the case already, and had been quite shocked to learn that the couple in question had decided just to bail out. They had only purchased the property the previous year, did not have that much invested, and took the course of least resistance. This was discouraging news in the ‘hood.

Having bought my parcel in 1975, for the ridiculous price of $8,000 ($400 per acre) I had been making payments for ten years already, with only three years to go. $67.00 per month may sound like peanuts, but twenty acres of land-with a 2,000 square-foot house, was not. There was no way I was bailing out.

Though there was no lock on the front gate, we found that it had been kicked open. We faired better with the front door of the house, because GF Mama had not bothered to lock it, and they had not kicked it in. Besides, there was no lock on the home-made, back door anyway, so why bother locking the front door?

Affixed to the post to the left of the destroyed front gate, was a land-forfeiture notice, informing us that our home and twenty acres were now the property of the federal government. We did what any normal, petrified people would do: We hired the Pro from Dover, Ron Sinnoway.

Unearthed at an archaeological dig,
studies indicate this book facilitated
communication in the old days.

We didn’t know the first thing about any local lawyers, so we went to the Yellow Pages and let our fingers do the walking. “Specializing in marijuana cases,” read Ron Sinnoway’s ad, and he was open to meeting with us immediately. 

Located up in Miranda, we opted to drive Bell Springs Road to Garberville, rather than double back down the five miles of dirt road to the highway, only to turn north again. When we arrived for an early morning [free] consultation, we actually met with Mr. Sinnoway’s partner, Ron Perlman, who had a young child on his lap the entire time. 

Rather than be put off by the presence of the child, we were comforted by her, and the meeting went well. Mr. Perlman told us up front that land seizure was a serious matter, but that he felt confident they could do the job for us. All of this was conducted in the congenial and informal of manners, including the matter of cost.

He told us up front that it was going to be an expensive proposition, because the entire matter of land seizure was relatively new, and as such, would require time. We assured him that the money would be forthcoming, and we walked out the door.

It seems the price of poker had gone up. After all, what was $17,500 anyway? Just a number, I guess, sort of like 33, the number of plants my pops and I had in the ground.