Will ‘legal’ pot take the edge off of a Trump presidency?
“Unique” isn’t right. Perhaps the word “apart” gets a little closer to the core of it all. The so-called “Marin Bubble” is hard to put into words, but it sometimes feels like living in an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, the title of which might be “The Lost World of Marin.”
As a Nevadan splitting time between Nevada and Marin, I can tell you first-hand about this charming Marin otherness.
The physical landscape of Marin, of course, is drop-dead spectacular. Being near San Francisco, one of the great cities of the world, without being in the grit of San Francisco, is certainly a positive. The much-treasured counter-culture history of Marin does indeed evoke a primal vibe, channeling the free spirits of of music giants on any given Friday night. Paging Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana, Sammy Hagar, Jefferson Airplane and on and on.
Now, after the 2016 general election, you can add two more items to the Marin mystique.
First, along with Nevada, California legalized marijuana. The measure passed by 12 points in California — 56 percent voting “Yes” and 44 percent voting “No”.
That margin ain’t got nuthin’ on Marin.
Marin approved pot by 40 percentage points. If you put up for vote the second coming of Jesus Christ, I don’t think you’d get that kind of support.
So big was the margin you gotta wonder how many Marin-ers went to the polls, read the question, exhaled and exclaimed: “Dude, pot’s NOT legal? When the hell did that happen?”
Jokes aside, it’s legal now to posses a small amount of marijuana and grow up to six plants in your residence to which Marin-ers say: “Congratulations, everyone. Marin welcomes your enlightenment.”
Second, and I am not making this up, Donald Trump is the president-elect. He won last week’s election big. He won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. I repeat: He he won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
But Marin? Donald Trump couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Marin.
Trump mustered only – drum roll please — 16 percent of the county vote. To put that into perspective, in 1968, Richard Nixon got 50 percent of the Marin vote for president. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Marin is indeed its own place. Perhaps legal marijuana will take a little of the edge off of a Trump presidency.
(Sherman Frederick is a founder of Battle Born Media and a Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame journalist. Battle Born Media publishes newspapers in Sparks, Eureka, Ely, Hawthorne, Lincoln County and Mesquite, as well as seven newspapers in the Bay Area. You can reach him shermfrederick@gmail.com. )
Leave a Reply