It was with some dismay that I read the notice in the Independent of June 16 that the County Zoning Board approved a cannabis (marijuana) dispensary at the Darcie Kent Vineyards on Tesla Road just outside the Livermore city boundary and a little over 300 yards south of the southern fence line of Sandia National Laboratory. While I was growing up, marijuana was considered a scourge because of its impact on society, predominantly on its vulnerable youth. It was branded as a “gateway drug” that often lead to addiction to more powerful drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, LSD and PCP (phencyclidine). Making the official determination whether a substance is habit forming has been an “intellectual battle” for many years. Marijuana users and suppliers fought, and evidently won, the battle, because marijuana is now openly cultivated and available in retail stores in many states; California is one of them.
There is no serious argument that will persuasively deny that this country has been in a gradual but conspicuous non-linear state of moral and ethical degradation and decline for nearly 60 years. Having been a long-term resident of the Bay Area, I have witnessed this decline as it noticeably accelerated over the past 25 years. It has yielded a dramatic increase in drug addiction in the U.S. Opioid drug deaths, for example, increased from 72,151 in 2019 to 93,331 in 2020, according to the CDC.
It is known that fentanyl, a more recent and easily available drug, is being massively imported today through our open southern border. Fentanyl alone has reportedly killed 78,795 Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 over the past two years. The primary source of fentanyl is China and, to a much lesser degree, India. While some of the precursors are imported into Canada and finished products smuggled into the northeastern U.S., the vast majority of fentanyl comes north across the border with Mexico. The current administration’s policy of maintaining an open border with Mexico has greatly enhanced the ease of importation of that illegal, killer drug. The current administration is very aware of the problem but has chosen to not take effective action against the drug importers by closing the border to massive and indiscriminate violations of American sovereignty. It appears that thousands of deaths from fentanyl are not of major concern. Flirting with psychoactive drugs typically starts with marijuana.
