I write this letter to echo some of the sentiments written by Shirley Hunter in her letter published in the Lake County Record Bee on 10/7.
I too have seen my neighborhood adversely affected by unregulated marijuana growing. In my small subdivision where there were originally 84 home sites, but due to infrastructure problems, only 14 were ever developed. These other “paper lots” sat empty for years until some unscrupulous realtors began listing them for sale, showing pictures of our spring (cooperatively owned by residents), and claiming the lots were developable. Growers were able to purchase these parcels cheap and divert water from the spring that supports the 14 homes in our subdivision.
What was once a quiet place to live now bustles with activity, unsupervised and unchecked by our overly taxed sheriffs department.
As long as there is a high demand for marijuana, people in our economically repressed community will seek to meet that need. Prohibiting people from growing has worked about as well as the prohibition on meth or the war on drugs in general, but I digress.
It seems as if we are not even enforcing the rules we do have, yet our community leaders think that making more rules will work better, really?
We can do better.
Measure O creates a new department within code enforcement specifically to deal with complaints of activity like Shirley Hunter and I have detailed. It also funds this neighborhood enforcement by registering legal cultivators on rural land, and charging them fees of up to $50 per plant.
By registering compliant gardens, we support a regulated industry that can help the local economy without the adverse effects of marijuana in our neighborhoods, or impacting the environment.
These policies will also free up our sheriff”s department to go after large criminal growers, and other problems like meth and the violent crime that surrounds it.
Robust regulation and enforcement is the answer for our community, that”s why I will be voting yes on measure O.
Michael Horner, Cobb
