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Opinion
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- Written by: Ron Green
On Thursday, April 28, at 10 a.m., the Lake County Planning Commission will be considering a draconian medical marijuana dispensary ordinance proposed by the Community Development Department.
The meeting will be on the first floor of the courthouse in Lakeport. I urge interested people to attend this meeting and show support for the dispensaries and medical marijuana patients.
The Lake County Chamber of Commerce recently tried unsuccessfully to get the Board of Supervisors to totally ban medical marijuana dispensaries, which serve thousands of county residents.
Now, the chamber and its allies are back with a regulatory ordinance so restrictive that it would close most of the dispensaries anyway.
Following the 1996 passage of Proposition 215, the legislature passed SB 420 to clarify the legality of medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives, and two court cases have clearly established that storefront dispensaries are legal.
Yet, the proposed ordinance reeks with an unspoken attitude that these dispensaries are quasi-criminal enterprises.
Medical marijuana dispensaries are legal, they are here to stay and we need to deal with them in a rational and practical manner.
One of the worst provisions in the proposed ordinance has already been deleted, the requirement that all dispensary members be county residents. But, there are many other awful provisions in this ordinance that need to be eliminated or changed.
The ordinance forces all the dispensaries to move from their safe, convenient, well-established locations in C-2 and CH shopping areas, to C-3, M-1 and M-2, heavy commercial and industrial areas. This alone may drive most of them out of business. Nine of the 11 dispensaries are in C-2, one is in CH, and one is in C-3.
It defines a dispensary in an incorrect and overbroad way that includes small growing collectives without storefronts. It would not allow for distribution to members of such legal growing collectives on the property where the marijuana is grown, nor by home delivery to the members, so they would essentially be banned.
Compliance would be through the sheriff’s office, rather than through the health department or the planning department. This treats dispensaries as quasi-criminal enterprises rather than as legal businesses offering a legitimate form of alternative medical treatment.
Dispensaries would have to disclose to the sheriff who their growers are and where the cannabis is grown. The growers are required by state law to be patients and members of the dispensing collectives. Requiring disclosure of their names and growing locations is a violation of patient privacy and also violates the grower’s privilege against (federal) self-incrimination and has a very chilling effect on those supplying marijuana to the dispensaries.
And, with federal laws still in conflict with California’s laws, there is nothing to prevent the sheriff or his deputies from sharing this information with the Drug Enforcement Administration, voluntarily or by subpoena.
The proposed ordinance requires a message that it “may cause cancer when smoked.” This is inaccurate and inappropriate. In fact, studies have shown that marijuana does not cause lung cancer and may actually fight cancer.
The proposed ordinance would not allow for the sale of small clones (cuttings), which most dispensaries do. However, it would allow for the sale of flowering marijuana plants, which means it would allow the sale of larger, more advanced plants, but not little clones, which makes no sense and shows that those drafting this have no clue. Indeed, neither dispensary owners nor medical marijuana advocates were directly involved in the drafting process.
There are now 11 dispensaries operating under the county moratorium. This ordinance sets a limit of nine. This would mean that at least two would have to close (probably most if required to relocate out of C-2 zoning), and does not allow for population increase and growth in the industry. It treats dispensaries differently from any other free enterprise business.
The ordinance does not clarify whether sales of edibles are permitted. Edibles are an established part of dispensaries, since many people are unable to smoke cannabis and need to eat it.
There are many other problems with this proposed ordinance, these are merely the most serious.
I urge interested people to attend the meeting on Thursday, April 28, at 10 a.m. at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
Ron Green is an attorney. He lives in Lower Lake, Calif.
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- Written by: Gale Tompkins-Bischel
Just across the street from the seminary it sits: an elegant white building with fancy columns that once belonged to the Hearst family.
For a while I wondered what was going on in there, and when it was time to register for spring classes I decided to find out by enrolling in a course called “Latter-day Saint Scriptures.” I was a little nervous, and wondered if this was how Jesus had felt as he prepared to venture into Samaria.
My first clue that this class would probably not conform to any preconceived notions was that the email address for the professor, Robert Reese, was listed as a “heartmath.org” address. Heartmath … I knew about Heartmath! This was the research organization devoted to the study of how the heart and mind communicate; actually kind of a “woo-woo” outfit as some of my friends might say.
So my professor turned out to be a big-wig at Heartmath and this was a good sign, since anyone closed-minded would probably not be working there! So far, so good.
Besides the likelihood that Bob would be a pretty spiritual guy, I noted from the Google results that he was also a former professor of literature at UCLA. Nice! And, an added bonus, Google also told me that he was the author of tens of LDS articles supporting gays and lesbians. My professor sounded a bit eccentric, so I liked him already.
The first night of class I went through the massive white doors and was welcomed into a big room with large windows, a long curved wooden table and an elegant rug intricately shaped to fit the unique geometry of the floor. A glorious fire burned in the fireplace, and the professor, calling himself Bob, introduced himself to us and then asked the students (about ten of us) to do the same.
There were only three non-Mormons: one from United Church of Christ, a Catholic and, of course me, a Disciple. Some of the Mormon students were from Pacific School of Religion, some were from UC Berkeley. All of them were eloquent and intelligent; one was even a “dark-matter” researcher! They, like me, were there to delve into the scriptures that South Park has made infamous to modern audiences: The Book of Mormon.
Actually, there are other LDS scriptures too, and they are basically “visions” of Joseph Smith containing a lot of doctrine about church life.
The Book of Mormon is the story of how ancient Israelites left Jerusalem before the Babylonian exile, sailing across the seas and settling somewhere in the Americas. After Jesus’ resurrection, he appears to descendants of these people to tell them the Gospel, and then leaves them to gradually kill themselves off – all but those who survive to become the Native Americans that we know today.
It is really a pretty sad and brutal story, and Mormons believe that the only reason we know about it is that the records were kept and buried, only to be found 1,400 years later by Joseph Smith on a hill in New York. A lot of 19th century Americans had a hard time accepting Joseph Smith’s “translations” and as a result Mormons were persecuted and murdered relentlessly for many years.
So, with an open mind I delved into the first reading assignment, only to be sidetracked by a persistent word: heresy, heresy, heresy, it whispered.
Wow, I thought. Me, thinking something is heretical? That’s interesting. Heresy seems like such an old-fashioned, prudish word.
But something just felt so wrong. I mean, the foundational premise was that the Jews had intentionally left crucial information about Jesus out of their scriptures.
If, and it’s a huge IF, I could believe that, next I would have to believe that passages from Isaiah that were written after the exile were somehow available to the Israelites who escaped before that; available for them to carve the words onto brass plates – in a mysterious language called “Reformed Egyptian” that translates into King James English.
And, how would these Israelites know of Greek words like “baptize,” “apostle” and “Christ” if they had left Israel 300 years before Alexander the Great conquered that region? How would they have known about “resurrection” if that concept didn’t enter Israelite consciousness until the captivity? How would Abraham know about the Law if it hadn’t been given yet?
These and many other questions were troubling, and digging into my first semester Old Testament notes was just making it worse. There was just no way that any of this stuff could be true.
Every week in class, the topic of anachronisms would inevitably come up and I’d present my concerns, all of which were afforded the respect they deserved by both Bob and the other students. The discussions were actually exciting and invigorating, and I soon had a reputation for being the troublemaker – all in good fun, of course.
For Mormons, belief boils down to the issue of faith, since certainly all religions have some bizarre aspects that they try to pass off as “truth.”
I was finally willing to let this suffice, because there was no convincing my professor that his scriptures were make-believe, and there was no way I was going to ignore the entirety of my Pacific School of Religion Old Testament education.
How much does it matter, anyway, as long as we agree on the fundamental message of Jesus, which is to love and serve one another? Yahweh himself and through his prophets “said” some pretty wacky things too, and Christians find a way to live with those without doubting the entirety of the Bible.
Gradually, I noticed myself feeling a strange affinity for Joseph Smith, a simple farm boy who tried to find a workable solution to the ugly 19th century denominational battles that were raging in his day.
The most surprising thing I learned from the class is that the LDS scriptures are, in fact, astonishingly compassionate and “liberal” – in the sense that the writers wanted desperately for their brethren and their descendents to forgo wealth in order to care for one another.
It’s a constant refrain:
“Behold, ye do love money and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick, and the afflicted. . . . Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? (Mormon 8:35-39)”
Additionally, after spending three hours in an LDS ward as part of an assignment, I was impressed with the emphasis on being “like Jesus”; serving and loving everyone – with no judging. There was no mention at all of brass plates, Native Americans, racism, homophobia or celestial kingdoms – sorry, South Park!
Men and women I encountered were filled with a spirit of fellowship and love, often evident in emotions and tears that flowed when they spoke of how God was working through their lives, creating strength out of adversity and guiding them to learn how to love their neighbor the way Jesus would. These did not seem like hate-filled people.
Best of all, Professor Bob Rees is a real champion in the faith, working graciously yet tirelessly for important social causes, including full rights for gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. He did not abandon his faith because of its doctrines; he knows that, unlike the Christian canon, the Mormon canon is still open for revision and reinterpretation.
He watches PBS and MSNBC, but also Fox News “to hear what the other side’s arguments are.” He’s often seen as controversial in the wards he attends, but he does not back down from witnessing about the saving power of Jesus’ love to anyone who will listen.
Bob has found the Kingdom within and because of this he both accepts and admires other world religions, even going so far as to encourage Mormons to read the Koran to understand that Muslims also love Jesus! He is, in my opinion, a true apostle: a “sent out” person.
From the deeply spiritual professor, interesting classmates, thought-provoking assignments and discussions, to the warmth and intimacy of the fireplace on dreary winter nights, this course was an experience well-worth having.
I feel so much better equipped to build bridges of peace with Mormons I will encounter throughout my life, even though I may not accept every word of their scriptures.
I thank my seminary and God for making it possible for understanding and respect to grow, even between, as some might believe, the most unlikely neighbors.
Gale Tompkins-Bischel attends United Christian Parish in Lakeport and is in the Masters of Divinity Program at Pacific School of Religion.
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- Written by: James BlueWolf
The Left wanted to redistribute our hard-earned wealth with socialist programs and entitlements for the poor and lazy; to abandon our Christian Conservative principles and Puritan values of thrift and work; to throw out our social culture to embrace homosexuality, abortion and other aberrant human activities; to encourage a multiculturalism that allowed minorities to speak in non-English languages and practice foreign customs; to re-entrench the labor movement and grow education systems that focused on teaching leftist agendas – in short, the Left was destroying our America.
Democracy wasn’t working for us anymore. The Dream of the Founding Fathers was never supposed to represent the ideas of so many different kinds of Americans, it was made to represent ours, the true Americans.
And so, we, the Christian God-fearing Conservatives who had controlled this country since the early 1800s decided that enough was enough.
First we began our propaganda and disinformation programs, utilizing a fractured media to target our base with short catch phrases and facts, real or imagined, that supported our ideals.
After mobilizing the bigoted and racist elements that couldn’t stand the election of a black president, and by publicly decrying the disintegration of our Anglo-Saxon culture and conservative values, we won a decisive victory in the House of Representatives and the state governorships.
We knew that peoples from our base would respond to our attacks on unions because of our state’s rights positions and our “no taxes, especially for corporations and the wealthy” approach to solving state insolvencies.
By not supporting new sources of revenues, and by protecting our wealthy private and corporate benefactors, we struck a blow at public services government in general – eliminating public sector positions like teachers, policemen, prison guards and city janitors while stripping the budgets of higher education, welfare, childcare, health-care and other social support programs.
We knew that the silent majority would let it happen without realizing the full effects of these changes on the society at large. We counted on these destabilizing changes to polarize the communities and push citizens into opposing camps according to their political beliefs.
We predicted that the economy would shut down again from these drastic cuts to entitlement programs and government safety net systems.
Unemployment, homelessness and hunger increased again – creating more unrest. Public schools began to shut down, tent cities grew, and more and more of the middle and poorer class Americans began facing a crisis of access to basic necessities.
Eventually they began to demonstrate, and as the demonstrations failed to accomplish the reinstatement of their socialist society, the gatherings became violent – with a little help from our paid provocateurs.
Our state governors had already put in place the processes to dissolve local governments, privatize former government services, and institute martial law to insure order.
We had also opened a second front for putting forward our cause, just in case. By cutting the corporate tax rates and controlling the Supreme Court to give our corporations and wealthiest citizens a bigger voice in the elections process, we achieved a much greater control of the government.
By the time our large, poorer conservative base realized that our goals weren’t about their basic prejudices and moral repugnance at Leftist “live and let live” ideals, but about control of the populace and government by our elite aristocracy, it was too late. We had gained control by fomenting citizen unrest and also by increasing our economic control of government decision-making – creating the aristocracy that our most respected founders, Adams and Madison, envisioned.
This was our endgame, to purposely divide the lower strata of society into “us and them,” forcing our democratic republic to become less and less democratic through control of the electoral systems and lobbying.
We decided that for us to hold the control the government and the society, we had to take the reins, even if that meant becoming more totalitarian.
The loss of freedoms the lower class would experience, and particularly the collapse of public education, would allow us to carry our goals well into the future as the coming generations would become less and less capable of mounting educated, intellectually thought-out plans to oppose us.
Our media policy of endless repetition and sound bites would keep them in line, especially if we continued to push entertainment and consumerism to keep them distracted from their loss of freedoms. A general desire for control of public violence supported our use of force.
We have almost achieved our goals. Just one more significant terrorist attack within our borders and we will have the control we want. Our America will be saved. Ends always justify the means.
James BlueWolf lives in Nice, Calif.
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- Written by: Gary Olson
Recently I had an appointment to see my personal physician of more than 20 years, Dr. Kirk Andrus, for my last office visit with him.
This would not just be a meeting of doctor and patient, but of two friends who shared medical truths and new jokes.
Andrus has been in the practice of family medicine, but after 25 years as our town “doc,” he’s migrating his talents and love of practicing medicine to the new Veterans Affairs clinic in Clearlake. He began there on Friday, April 1 – April Fool's Day, an appropriate date.
We were fools to think we would have him forever as our always-vigilant attendant to medical and sometimes emotional needs in our little town of Kelseyville.
Admit it, unless you’re a hypochondriac, no one really likes going to the doctor. No matter how nice they are or how cute the receptionist may be, especially for men in their middle to senior years with that first colonoscopy looming in the future.
There is a bond one hopes to cultivate with a primary care doctor. You hope to find connection and support when a medical condition develops and you can both again agree that “getting older really sucks!”
When I first met Dr. Andrus, it was not in an exam room. It was in the high school library at a meeting talking about passing a school bond to improve the facilities of our schools.
All I did that night was meet a guy who became a friend for the next 20 years or so. The school bond failed miserably, but the friendship succeeded way past my expectations.
Have you ever met someone who, after only five minutes, you found was a kindred spirit? This guy has that effect on a lot of people. Not just as doctor, but as a friend, father and husband.
I always wanted to live in a small town with all the advantages and disadvantages of everyone knowing everyone else and having a close-knit feeling among the fabric of the people. It comes from growing up in an area where outside immediate family and few friends, that feeling generally doesn’t exist.
So when I opened my business on Main Street, I couldn’t help but notice that across the street was a family medical practice that would no longer allow me to ignore the need for an annual physical, even if I hadn’t had one in some years.
So that was the start of my medical relationship with Doc Andrus and his staff.
Over the years I’ve needed medical attention at some inconvenient times. If it wasn’t the Friday he was getting ready for a hunting trip, it was the Mother’s Day episode getting “thrown” by my orchard ladder, chainsaw in hand.
On that day, he was forced to cut my wedding ring off my finger so he could reset a couple of disjointed knuckles. He never offered to pay for the ring repair either.
I have seen and heard similar testimonies from others. He went way above and beyond the call of modern medical practice and duty. There are many of you who will read this, I hope, and know exactly what I’m saying.
Doc Andrus is not a specialist in the medical sense of things. But he does specialize in one big thing, the main thing that matters most: He is caring, compassionate and considerate. He also just happens to be a physician.
We have seen this man not only delivering new life in to the world, and keeping it healthy, but also graciously and compassionately easing his patients into the next stage of life.
Talk about the yin and the yang, the alpha and the omega. He’s there in the beginning, the end and the time in between.
What an incredible perspective it takes to be able to shoulder that responsibility.
We have come to expect and take it in stride. Doctors aren’t gods. We want or expect them to be at times. He’s been there on the sidelines and courtside. He could be heard from the announcers' tower at the high school calling out the play-by-play.
As I left his office after that last visit the reality hit me like a freight train: I realized how my life has been touched and affected by his presence.
Recently during a snow storm, he returned a call to me. Over the years we have traded comical voice mails to ease the pressures of the day. Especially his pressures.
He said he was driving home from seeing a patient who couldn’t get in to the office because of the weather – an elderly patient who couldn’t just wait a few days for the weather to get better. He needed to get better.
So Doc hitched up the buggy, put it in four-wheel-drive and went to do his house call. He’s done this quietly and with conviction for many years, for so long.
I thought, “Who is going to do this when he moves on to his new clinic job?”
It dawned on me like the news of a terminal condition: This is the end of an era. Andrus Family Practice on Main Street is done, over. The good ol' days of a local, country doc are vanishing and going the way of so many things in our modern lives.
Managed health care, PPOs, HMOs, health insurance rules and technology are transforming the medical landscape into one big bureaucratic mess.
There are other kind, caring doctors out there, but, damn it, he is my doc and our relationship is changing forever. It's frustrating, because I know it will be better for him, but not for me or any of his other patients in town. I will try desperately not to compare the new guy coming in to take his office space.
In the future I wish one thing for myself and Doc. I hope he outlives me and is at my side with loved ones, helping me out the back door when the time comes – not as my doctor, but as a great friend.
The folks down at the VA Clinic are in for a real treat. He’s not done taking care of people, just those of us left behind in K-town.
Thank you and good luck, Doc. There is truly a doctor in the house.
Gary Olson lives in Kelseyville, Calif.