Hello Westfield, and especially Ward 3. Again, I start with an, I am SORRY, (not really) but I cannot help it. I TOLD YOU SO!!!!. 2.2 million dollars spent in 5 days on cannabis in Northampton and Leicester. Next will be Easthampton, and soon thereafter, Holyoke, Springfield and others. And, where will Westfield be??? Another blown opportunity to generate revenue, and thus taxes so as NOT to have to raise taxes, AND fund city business, maybe even 21st century upgrades….to be attractive to other tax paying businesses. I do not know what drives the thinking of some on the City Council, but sure is not fiscal responsibility. Rapidly changing technology is expensive, but we have to keep up, or be left behind. We could go back to the 1960’s when industry went South, and Mass. economics was in a malaise for 20 or 30 years. Luckily many communities are making intelligent decisions, and willing to take risks. That is fundamental Americanist economics.
Yes, I understand the thinking around the sale and use of cannabis, but REEFER MADNESS never happened. In part, such social thinking was instigated by the anti-immigration efforts from the ‘20’s, then it was anti-Catholic, and anti-any non-WASPs. Italians were criminals, Irish thugs, Eastern Europeans along with the others were pro-labor rights, Socialists and Communists. Chinese and Japanese, after 70+ on the West Coast, and Latinos after 300 years in the West found themselves victims of a failing economy caused by mess ups incorporate America. (Remember the Great Depression???) Even FDR, in the 1940’s had said that Catholics and Jews were here at the sufferance of Protestant America. Even in the ’60’s people doubted JFK could be elected ashe was an Irish Catholic. It is surprisingly easy to con some people. As an old person I have to disagree with the old adage: you can trick all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t trick all the people all of the time. As of late, the per cent being tricked seems to be increasing. Look at home many are taken by con jobs over the phone. Or, taken by marketing tricks in general. How many accept news from the FED as fact, without, as Ronald Reagan said, VERIFY.
OK, before I get carried away…Cannabis has been smoked here throughout the 20th century and was even prescribed until the anti-immigrant efforts, anyone who spent military time in Europe knows that hashish had been smoked in the Middle East for millennia and this was a region of great science discovery, culture, arts, etc. Do you want to know the effects of cannabis, try learning the facts and not just from scary stories told by con artists working for their self-serving cause? Gullible is not good! Yes there can be problems some die from eating peanuts, others can only have a drink or 2, to become intoxicated. As with the alcohol prohibition, all that the cannabis and other drugs have done was to create a massive underground market, and billionaires out of narco terrorists: (business principle: the Law of Supply and Demand; Americans have the demand, and the Narco terrorists have the supply. After all this time med science is finding hallucinogens have positive results in treating mental health issues. We should have stayed with real New World Americanist principles, control use by making it legal, and regulating it. And, let someone do business with it. We have allowed the con artists to use Old World conditioned thinking to abandon our Americanist principles and practices. And, man are we paying for it. We really need to talk economics; you cannot replace smarts with attitude. Your former Ward 3 City Councilor, Brian Hoose…[email protected].
