Hot tipper Aaron writes…
I was wondering if you’ve seen the A&E news feature “Pot City, USA” narrated by Meredith Vieira. It focuses on Arcata, California, the sleepy NorCal town where upwards of 20% of all private residences have been converted into grow houses. It’s filled with the requisite adoration of law enforcement, pot bust ride along, and interview with some crazy-looking medical marijuana user. Medical marijuana is presented as being exploited for non-medical purposes which, while true, was not followed up with any discussion of ending prohibition.
From the show summary…
A lot of people think that Humboldt County in northern California is an American paradise. Small towns in the county like Arcata look like they’ve been plucked right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. But the town has a dirty little secret—law enforcement officials say that over 1,000 homes there may be growing marijuana illegally. Capt. Mark Chapman and the Humboldt County Drug Task Force are determined to take back the town, house by house. Our cameras follow as they make busts and fly over forestlands searching for hidden marijuana groves.
Here’s the dirtiest little secret: the only way to end illegal grow-ops is to allow legal ones. The producers of “Pot City, USA” should’ve interviewed someone willing to point out that out. Once again: no one would be growing marijuana illegally in unoccupied homes or public forests if it were legal to grow marijuana on farms. Part one of “Pot City, USA” after the jump…
I LOVE humboldt county – most amazing part of the us of a.
Hey Dan,
Did you watch past part 1?
They do talk about prohibition and how to stop the issue, legalize it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPEj0RAF5ro…
As a student at Humboldt State University (I grew up in Portland) the issues presented in this news feature are very familiar. Humboldt County DOES have a lot of housing problems due to grow houses taking up a good sized chunk of decent, affordable housing especially for students. There’s a lot of effort to change that though without use of force by the police. Last year I attended a city council meeting where there was an in-depth discussion about plans for changing zoning laws for legal growers to get them out of houses and potentially into larger co-ops and warehouses where they could grow without the destruction presented in the video. Although that doesn’t say much for the overwhelming amounts of illegal growers, the general sentiment seemed to be that “peaceful” measures like re-zoning could help push them out or keep them under control if full legalization of marijuana doesn’t occur in the near future.
Having actually lived in Arcata I can say that this show has a point. It is more about a lack of respect for the community as a whole than “Marijuana is bad”. Yes, she/they really could have talked more about how legalization would make these minimize these problems. Do you really think that legalization would all of a sudden make these grow houses disappear? In a place that has done nothing short of glorify marijuana cultivation for the last 20-30 years? Have you seen the types of stupid fucking a-holes that show up in town to panhandle on the streets, try to sell your kids weed, get drunk in the Plaza, fight and yell around town? The show in general reminded me of a conversation I had with a couple I am friends with. Essentially they said they were moving away because it was not a good place to raise children due to the overbearing pot culture and the scum army that come to toil in the ranks.
Heh. “They’re not growing medicine. They’re growing drugs.”
Are people really that ignorant?
I grew up in Arcata, my parents were the orginial buyers of a home in Westwood Village, i go back to Arcata several times a year, it is getting worst to go back because it is so ShantyTown like, the streets have broken down cars and vans everywhere, no curtains just tie-dyed blankets, why does a town let college students run it???Maybe if you’d let some companies come in with good wages you can get rid of some of this scum, weed has always been there but then we had law inforcement who cared, now it looks like we boy scouts who are inhaling theirselves and see no problem with it…Arcata clean up your town before nothing but potheads will be your future…
I grew up in Arcata, my parents were both vets from world war II, they had morals and values and strict rules, my three brothers and i were raised to obey the law but always question why?? never settle for one answer, I myself grew up as a rebel but I never heard of weed, Pot and all the other names it goes by, until Viet Nam. My last few times going back home was disgusting, the homes look like shantytown, auto’s parked in streets all in parts, tie-dyed blankets in windows, every other house looked like yard sells or dumps, couldn’t get to any stores with all the potheads hanging around the doorways and plaza looking like homeless people.. What happened to Arcata’s pride as a city, where is the law inforcement? City fathers??? OMG, i would be scared to death to raise a family there now…Ashamed of my hometown..
Aaron, if you’ve never lived in Arcata, tried to raise a family in Arcata, plan to retire in Arcata and be a true neighbor in Arcata, you can’t possibly know how the people in the video feel. Arcata went from being friendly, wholesome community to one that is driven by the greed of the pot business. Young, local residents and students are unable to find housing due to the proliferation of grow houses. Our community forest, once a jewel in our community, has become a magnet for “travellers” who live in the woods, leaving feces and garbage and loose dogs for our city to clean up. The city Plaza is no longer comfortable for the old-timers who built the community. Visitors and Arcatans who are brave enough to go to the Plaza are disgusted with the in-your-face panhandlers who constantly ask for something “green” (meaning weed).
Honest, hard-working business people lose business because of this. It is not the town I feel in love with when I moved here some 30 years ago.