Cash crop
EDITOR: I'm a 74-year-old grandmother local to the west county since the 1960s. This Forestville murder has touched almost everyone I know - a wave of thousands ("Authorities pursue leads in Forestville triple slaying," Feb. 12). Pot isn't the cause.
Violence is drawn by the promise of gain: money. Kids get involved because the lifestyle standards around them make it impossible to participate without money. Some resort to a sure-fire way to earn money: getting into pot, along with a lot of Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt county folks. Look at the economic sources of Northern California.
The problem is it's getting really dangerous. Why? We seem to make money the No. 1 value. Bottom line. It draws Mexican cartels or locals who want some of the pie. Greed spreads. The solution? Make it legal. Let's put caring in the No. 1 position. Grow pot in the backyard, and tax it for sale. Voila! No more pot deaths from guns at the heads of neighbors' sons.
It would take our Northern California economy a while to adjust, but if we change to bottom-line values of caring, relationships and improving our environment, eventually we'll have a safer, kinder world.
Anything that promotes more guns, more greed, more violence is unwise.
ALEXANDRA HART
Sebastopol
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