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Let’s give medical marijuana a chance - Comments (7) View Comments
Melanie Brubaker Mazur - 3/26/2010
I’m not going to delve into the argument of whether smoking marijuana is right or wrong. You’ve probably made up your mind on that.
I think Bayfield should lift its medical marijuana moratorium based on purely financial factors. We need tax revenue, and buying and possessing medical marijuana is legal in the state of Colorado.
Ignacio’s in the same boat as Bayfield. Our sales tax revenues in both towns depend on two small grocery stores, Lewis True Value Mercantile, and liquor stores. That’s about it.
If more businesses want to move in, and they’re providing a legal service that pays sales tax, they should have at it.
Throwing up roadblocks while we sit and try to figure out what to do is just going to send that revenue elsewhere.
If town trustees and managers can show us where we have an excess of sales tax revenue coming in, I’m all ears.
Until then, get out of the way and let the free market do its work.
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Bayfield may have a revenue problem but legalizing marijuana, medical or otherwise is not the answer. The endless claims regarding the medical benefits of "pot" are dubious at best and a town already strapped for cash would find it difficult aquiring the resources to deal with all the problems drug use creates. In an honest cost to benefit analysis this is a loser. And then there are the moral issues but since thats a tender subject Ill leave readers to contemplate those ramifications on their own
Ken Schrader
I understand that some people have made up their minds that medical marijuana is bad. The fact of the matter is, that it is written into our constitution. Does the town of bayfield really have the power to make judgments against our contitutional rights? I am pleased we live in a country where we are protected as citizens by our constitution. Let us not allow that to be taken from us. I pray that the new town elections will solve this issue once and for all.
Bayfield resident
Hello,
My name is Matt Ellerbeck and I am a snake conservationist who is actively involved in trying to aid in the recovery of threatened endangered snake species. In doing so, one of my objectives is to help alleviate peoples negative attitudes and fears towards snakes, and this will hopefully decrease the number of snakes killed by fearful individuals.
To help achieve this I have put together an article called The Truth About Snakebites. I have posted this article at the bottom this email. I hope your newspaper/publication will take the time to run the article to help encourage people to co-exist with wildlife in peaceful manner.
Thank you for your time.
Matt Ellerbeck - Snake Conservationist
http://snakeconserve101.weebly.com/
The Truth About Snakebites
by Matt Ellerbeck
Snakes are among the worlds most misunderstood and feared creatures, and this fact is certainly one of the biggest obstacles against gaining support to conserve these animals and protect them from cruelty. Human fear of snakes is mainly derived from that fact that some species have the ability to inject toxic venom, or from the belief that snakes are notoriously aggressive. However, the horrible reputation that snakes have is widely undeserved.
Snakes will not make unprovoked attacks on people. When a person comes in contact with a snake, the animals first instinct will be to rapidly flee the area and find shelter. If the snake doesnt do this, it may just stay perfectly still to try to blend in with the surroundings.
Even if the snake is captured, it may still not resort to biting - proof of its gentle demeanor. The snake has several harmless tactics it can resort to as an alternative to biting. The snake may hiss, make mock strikes with a closed mouth, or flail around to try and escape.
An account of the true nature of snakes can be found in a study done by University of Georgia Professor Dr. Whit Gibbons. The following excerpt from Dr. Gibbons study speaks for itself:
All the snake species tested have had the same initial response to human presence. If given the opportunity, they escapedown a hole, under a ledge, or in the case of cottonmouth snakes, into the water. Escape is even the standard behaviors of enormous diamondback rattlesnakes, which will immediately disappear if they have enough warning before they think a person can reach them. The snakes just want us to leave them alone.
Snakes bites on humans usually only happen when someone is deliberately trying to provoke or harm a snake, and the animal bites purely in self defense. According to NC State University, almost 80 of snake bites happen when someone is trying to capture or kill the snake. All these facts show that snakes are not aggressive or evil animals. If you provoke and capture a wild animal, what can you expect but to be bitten since the animal is going to try to defend itself?
The key to being safe around snakes is to simply leave them alone. The following excerpt from the book Dangerous Snakes of Africa by Branch and Spawls(1995), speaks volumes: Snakes never make unprovoked attacks.
It is important to remember that most snakes are completely harmless. In fact only around 13 of all snake species are venomous. Of this small number, even less are equipped with venom that is strong enough to seriously harm a human being.
If a venomous snake does bite a person, often no venom is injected into the bite. Snakes have venom first and foremost as a means to quickly subdue their prey. The venom also helps the snake digest its meal, as it aids in breaking down the prey internally. This is important as snakes do not chew their food but swallow it whole. As humans are too big for snakes to eat, they will not want to waste their precious venom on us.
If the snake does inject venom, proper medical treatment and anti-venom can usually save the persons life. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, only about 0.2 of people bitten by snakes in United States actually die from the bite.
It is very easy to co-exist with snakes, especially since they do many useful things for people. First of all, snakes are great controllers of rodents like rats and mice. Without snakes, rodent populations would serge and these creatures would destroy crops, affecting our food supply. Rodents also spread harmful diseases which can seriously affect our health. Snakes are great at hunting rodents because they can crawl into small burrows and other areas that rodents use as shelters. These places are too small for other predators to get into. Furthermore, snakes are saving the lives of countless numbers of people every year. Snake venom is being used in the medical field to treat all sorts of serious ailments like heart and stroke disease, cancer, Parkinsons, blood clots, and many more.
Despite these benefits, countless numbers of snakes are killed by fearful people every year. We must look past our fear and ignorance and see snakes for what they really are - interesting creatures that play very important roles in the eco-system. A fear of snakes can be a learned behavior, so we must learn not to pass our irrational fears onto our children, but teach them to respect wildlife.
Matt Ellerbeck
www.GrannyConnec.com
Story Idea
GrannyConnect’s introduces the gramit - we build relationships between grandchildren and their grandparents while simultaneously documenting an aspect of family history to be enjoyed for generations to come!
Today’s trend in social networking of essentially substance free, for the moment communication serves its purpose but does not produce records for posterity nor does it encourage communication of substance – such communication is almost always lost over the years and even when it is kept its lack of context makes reading it in the future virtually meaningless. GrannyConnect’s gramit’s have a consistent context, are stored and accessible forever creating history!
We chose to focus on grandchild/grandparent relationships because children with positive grandparent interaction in their life grow to become happier more successful adults and grandparents with these relationships enjoy longer healthier golden years. It also addresses the common phenomenon in our society of grandparents and grandchildren living at non commutable distances from each other.
This can be a real human interest story pertinent to your audience and we would be happy to assist you to create such or write it on your behalf. Contact us at:
Greg and Debbie Beauchamp
greggrannyconnect.com
www.grannyconnect.com
(613) 808-5750
GrannyConnect has now published the “7 Rules to a Happy Grandchild/Grandparent Relationship”, see: www.grannyconnect.com/grandchild_rules.html
Greg Beauchamp
The film that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin made in 1967 of Bigfoot was real. The test that Nasa did on the film stated that the creature had both human and gorilla characteristics. Bigfoot is a human-primate hybrid. Half man and half gorilla. A man made creature that was created several thousand years ago by men that went to Africa and had sex with female gorillas. For all the skeptics out there, it was real men that had sex with real female gorillas. No one was wearing a costume at the time.
Jesus Christ
Do you know what your doctor is doing? These so called medical clinics are all across this country.
My neighbor is a college student. She has had parties on the weekend every now and then. No big deal. They have disturbed my sleep once in a while. No big deal. Until Mar. 12, 2011. The party had grown to many partyers. No big deal. But, they started to party in my back yard. Thats a Big Deal. At 1:13 AM on Mar 13th. I called the police dispatch. They sent two officers over and confiscated at least 3 cases of beer. No big deal, until, I went out side that morning and found beers cans in my yard, in the neighbors yard and in the alley. I also found a bag of Marijuana in my neighbors yard. THIS IS A BIG DEAL, the label on the zip lock bag read, "Durango Healing Center SOUR DIESEL For Medicinal Use Only". I picked it up and called the Durango Dispatch (911). I searched the buildings on my property to see if those children hide any contraband or if anything had been broken or stolen.
Why is any one allowing this to happen? I am not. I have sent this to every one I know between Arizona to Washington DC. These medical facilities are filling these preions to college children. These people are not being properly supervised while treating themselves or their college friends!
Wayne Halstead
Your site is very interesting.
remsanashia
caravan sales
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