After months of telling a federal court he intended to plead guilty to charges that he murdered one of the workers tending his marijuana farm, a Kneeland man has reconsidered and appears ready to take his case to trial. Mikal Xylon Wilde, 32, was indicted federally March 1, 2012 on six counts, including murder in […]
marijuana
Posted inNews
Poison Accord
The maker of d-Con®, Reckitt Benckiser, will no longer sell the poison pellets that happy homemakers for years have used to fatally banish unwelcome rodents (and which some marijuana farmers have used to clear their crops of pests, resulting in the deaths of wildlife). New legislation already bans the general, non-permitted use of such poisons in […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Trimming for Ramen
The starving college student is a cliché for a reason. Balancing work, school and pleasure requires careful fiduciary planning, or a good hole to stick your head in. Students unable to get parental support or government aid (or whose financial backing doesn’t quite cover that college town rent) need jobs. Jobs! The results of a survey recently […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
That Juice Tax
It’s been seven months since Arcata’s excessive electricity tax went into effect, and the threat to residential growers’ bottom lines seems to have sent most of them packing. The results are drastic. In the year or so between city residents’ approval of the tax and implementation, the number of houses using “excessive” energy dropped from […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Boring Stuff about Banks and Laws
Industrial sites are the hot real estate commodities in Colorado, as would-be pot barons are snatching up warehouses and other properties suitable for indoor marijuana growing. A Bloomberg news story this week led with an anecdote about a Denver broker who offloaded a leaky, 40,000-square-foot warehouse in less than a day to a cash-paying client […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The 4/20 That Wasn’t
Did you hear the crickets on Sunday? Downtown Arcata was slightly more populated with skunky tourists, and one lonely celebrator traversed H Street, tinny whoops and slides of electronic music belching from his waist-clipped radio. But overall, it was a doobie-day downer. Redwood Park was all but empty, reported HumRights executive director (and NCJ Media […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
How Green Is Your Weed?
Is your purple kush green? Not its floral tint, but its environmental hue? Actually, back up a second. Can you say with certainty that it’s purple kush? Where was it grown? Indoor or outdoor? What fertilizers and pest controls were used? A trapping of black market weed is that it’s difficult to trace with much […]
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How Green is Humboldt?
As the world readies to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, it seems a fitting time to take a good, hard look in the mirror. Yes, Humboldt County, home to towering redwood trees, flowing rivers and a magnificent coastline, was green before it was cool. It’s a place where folks outfitted their homes with solar […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Snake Oil
Cannabis cures cancer. So goes the viral claim, which like most Internet-borne beliefs, is misguided, unfounded and potentially dangerous; and fueled by hope, desperation and frustration. There’s no shortage of “evidence” online. Glossy websites like www.cureyourowncancer.org offer competent-sounding (look, big words!) solutions while sites like Alternet and YouTube offer an anti-mainstream-media forum for testimonials. Before […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Don’t Get Caponed
“But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” said Ben Franklin. But there’s a way to avoid at least one of those: grow weed. “B-b-but sales tax!” some cry, as though paying 8 percent of the cost of that flat screen at Target comes anywhere near the income […]
Posted inNews
Ridding Toxic Killers
On Tuesday, California passed a regulation restricting retail sales of certain rat poisons, such as d-Con. Soon, only licensed, certified or county permitted application professionals will be able to use them. The restrictions don’t go into effect until July 1. But by Friday morning, at least one local retailer already was sweeping those products from its shelves. […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Connections to a Conspiracy
It’s not often that Humboldt County ends up in the pages of ESPN the Magazine. But, there we are in this week’s edition. It turns out it was the discovery of $100,000 in cash and a map of Eureka found in the trunk of a marijuana-perfumed Toyota Camry that spawned the massive FBI case a […]