Pubdate: Fri, 21 Feb 2014
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact:  http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority
Author: Loretta Ann Torres

CANNABIS BUSINESS DOESN'T NEED OUR HELP

Have you seen the card tables at Target, Wal-Mart and Raley's? 
Petition drives, leading to passionate talk about the marijuana 
growing in Butte County. Who's right, who's wrong?

I'd never looked at the people who live in the foothills before this 
month. Good, honest residents of the county are scared. They're 
scared of the "growers for profit." These growers have used the 
99-plant ordinance, passed last year by our Board of Supervisors, to 
fund this new referendum that overturns stricter regulations passed 
Feb. 11 by the supervisors. The growers' strategy uses the referendum 
process to delay these safeguards.

I've gone to the public board meetings. I've heard the threats by the 
growers. I've heard the pleas from the neighbors. I listened to women 
who nursed their husbands through serious illness tell me they grew 
the plants inside and had enough "weed" to make their loved ones comfortable.

These "growers for profit" hide behind sick patients in the county 
while they line their pockets. Make no mistake. This is not up for a 
vote. September will be "vote time."

Before you sign anything about marijuana, go to the website 
www.bsane.org Butte County Safe Access. See for yourself what damage 
to the environment these "for-profit growers" are doing to the 
county's foothills.

With water shortages throughout the state and farmers cutting back, 
do "for-profit marijuana growers" really need our help?

- - Loretta Ann Torres, Chico
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom