Marijuana & Meth.

Boy, what a day. Early this morning 13 of us sat in a county court hearing to state our objections to a large (level 3) marijuana farm planned for the north end of Lopez (we had to take the ferry to the county seat in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island). While waiting at the terminal the local owner of a high end B & B (built by the actor Tom Skerritt – and whose marriage ended in divorce over the stresses in the building process) in the village showed up with a horrifying tale. At 4 AM Sunday he was called by the manager of the B & B that there was an active break-in, in progress. He got dressed and drove to the building where he was met with the local police with guns drawn. A known meth dealer/user had broken 4 windows (and cut his foot so there was blood) into the building and terrorized guests. It was Valentines weekend and all the rooms (7) were full with couples wanting to spend a romantic weekend in a quiet place. At one point the robber pulled the fire alarm to get a couple out of their room (and notifying the fire dept.). The room where the person was determined to be, the police broke in and found the guy hidden in a closet with both a gun and knife (which he used to break the windows). The guests of the room had locked themselves in the bathroom where they hid, naked, in the bath tub. The guy was arrested and is now in the county jail and, coincidentally, he will be arraigned today and the owner was asked to testify and he just happened to be at the courts with our petition.

Almost nothing is simple and getting a license to grow marijuana is an extreme case in point. Many facets of this proposal were shown: using vast amounts of water from the well will cause salt water intrusion which has become a problem with wells near the sea, distances from things as school bus stops (which there are 2), neighboring houses and on and on. One thing discussed was whether this operation should come under the heading of agricultural. On the way back we discovered this very night there is a meeting by the county Ag group to declassify marijuana as an Agricultural product. It is not for direct consumption and should be classified as coming under the dept. of alcohol and Cannabis. Almost 400 locals have signed on to protest the permitting of this farm. The recent criminal activity only highlights the sort of thing we want to curtail.