Greatest show in Chico

As Chico City Council meetings go, the hearing Tuesday night (Nov. 16) on a proposed medical-marijuana ordinance was hugely entertaining.

There were the usual slightly addled medi-pot users insisting on their right to take their “medicine,” and there were dispensary owners who wanted us to believe they were earnest do-gooders providing a service to the sick. There was even a guy who said he’d been working on a plan whereby the city would become the medi-pot provider and use the revenues to fund city services. Socialized medi-pot!

There was also a contingent of men in dark suits from Los Angeles, most of them of Japanese heritage, with big ideas. They hope to turn the 600,000-square-foot Koret building at the airport into a major marijuana-growing facility. Chico as pot capital of America!

The only people speaking against the ordinance were three attorneys from DA Mike Ramsey’s office, including the big guy himself. Collectives are legal, dispensaries are not, Ramsey insisted. He didn’t seem very passionate about it, however, perhaps because he could see which way the smoke was blowing.

It was another goofy night on the medi-pot front.