Posted on November 16, 2022 View all news
By Joe Tilton
If Montcalm County’s most vocal marijuana grower has his way, Sidney Township will ask citizens to vote on whether his product can be legally sold through a dispensary in his Community, although leadership has said, “no.”
With municipalities in the county “opting-out” of marijuana sales, David Overholt, who is not willing to give up on making money from weed, went on WOOD-TV, along with attorney Robert Hendricks, to say voters could override their elected leadership to follow the “Democratic wishes of the majority.”
Overholt’s reasons for prompting a vote, as he said during the TV interview was, “needed revenue and public safety.” Revenue for who? What public safety is he talking about? If it’s farmers he’s concerned about, legitimate commercial-grow operations already produce potatoes, corn and soy, crops the pot grower could be farming on his property without legal hurdles.
The pro-pot community in the county has made claims such as: marijuana cures cancer and it’s not a gateway drug, while research attributes use of weed with depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, hallucinations, birth defects, learning difficulties, increased risk of testicular cancer and even genetic changes. Besides, if pot cures cancer, somebody alert the American Cancer Society! If growing the drug that can take our nation down is dangerous for society, why take your community down first?
Perhaps Sidney Township should ask if allowing the farming of this man-made disaster is the best thing for their home and children.
If it weren’t for the profit motive, there would be no call to “farm” marijuana legally. Proposition One, passed in November, already allows for possession and “growing for personal use.” If you want it badly enough and “need it,” grow it yourself—it’s legal to do that. But, of course, pushers wouldn’t be making personal profits legally. Voting “yes” in Sidney to give one person permission to open a business for big profit makes no more sense than voting for him to open a pharmacy without graduating from pharmacy school. Besides, when is it wise to vote on a medicine?
The term “medical marijuana” is misleading for the reason Oveholt stated in the interview. If he had been given permission to sell medical marijuana years ago, he claims, there would have been no push for recreational. Does that statement not expose the fact there is no difference in “medical” and “recreational?” Stoners don’t care what you call it.
Public safety. Oh, boy, what a claim. Most weeks, during arraignment hearings in Stanton, from 50-percent to 80-percent of all crimes committed in Montcalm County and brought before the judge, someway involve marijuana. Nationally, we know 30-percent of all crime committed by women involve pot. What public safety could he talking about? Legal sales fail to reduce the black market.
It appears the weed industry wants to make big profits while the rest of us pay for courts, attorneys, judges, jails, prisons, loss form burglaries and break-ins, rehab institutions, loss of productivity from our workforce, birth-defect medical treatments, emergency-room visits and mental hospitals, all derived from a profit motive that costs sober citizens higher taxes.
Sidney Township, do you really want to vote on disaster?
More information is at www.AALM.info.
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