Valley Springs, CA…You are faced with a decision that you, and the County, has been fretting over for more than a year. A decision, at least for elected leaders, is quite simple. You took oaths to uphold federal law. Marijuana, and everything on the Calaveras County list having to do with marijuana, including money laundering, is against federal law.

It’s against federal law even if the feds don’t adequately enforce the law.

It’s against federal law even if the legislature in Sacramento usurped power they didn’t have, and that other entities have done likewise.

It’s against federal law regardless of the financial implications for this county, good or bad.

It’s against federal law even if the people wanted it here, which they don’t.

It’s against federal law even if you can get away with breaking it.

None of the above facts empower you to ignore the law and your oaths, nor does the notion you’ve been presented with; “the times, they are a changing.”

You have heard faux arguments connecting this issue with the U.S. Constitution, but at no time have those proponents cited any law, any Supreme Court decision, or any Article of the Constitution that permits a county Board of Supervisors to interpret federal law, or circumvent it, or determine its constitutionality. You haven’t seen it because it doesn’t exist. No disrespect, but that’s not your job and you have no rights in that regard. If the law changes, it changes in Congress, or in the Supreme Court, not in the Calaveras County Board room.

Not only have you not acquired any rights due to decisions in Sacramento, you have not acquired any rights due to decisions be the former Board. You have not acquired any rights due to the fact that marijuana has been around a long time and has been grown in the backwoods of this county for a long time. While those facts may be relevant to a broad discussion of the issue for some other purpose, they are not relevant to your decision.

Much of what you have heard has to do with arguments over whether marijuana is good medicine. All those hours of testimony on that subject are completely irrelevant to your decision. The people in our system of government who are empowered to decide that issue have decided it and will continue to review it based on scientific procedures their protocols require them to follow. That’s their job, not yours.

I said this is simple and it is. I didn’t say “easy,” but I’m sure you agree that is also irrelevant. The simplicity is embedded in the fact that the only decision you have the right to make is to ban everything the State allows you to ban, and not to go further is only impractical because we as a county cannot afford to fight the state in court over the balance of those activities.

Why are your oaths and the law being treated like elephants in the room? When we citizens elect officials to represent us, the very least we should be able to expect is that they uphold their oath and not break the law. When did that become too much to ask?