Marijuana battlefield in Glen Ellen

By Jonah Raskin | Special to The Sun

Now that autumn’s here, marijuana growers are harvesting their crop, some of which will stay local and some of which will travel to Bay Area markets. Not everyone who grows “cannabis,” as it’s often called these days, has had smooth sailing. In fact, for some the waters have been choppy. Bianca Maria (not her real name) has had a hellish season.

First, Sonoma County adopted new rules this year that said that growing marijuana was illegal on any parcel labeled “Rural Residential.” Bianca Maria’s acre is definitely “Rural Residential.”

The County was ready to phase her out, but since she had grown on the same property previous years she was allowed to continue to grow during this “transitional” year. She’s now looking for land where she can grow next year.

Meanwhile, she has plants in the ground that receive direct sunlight and that she waters with a hose. It’s not a lucrative operation; fortunately, she has a local business that supports her financially and a mother who lives on the same property and who helps out. Bianca Maria’s biggest problem wasn’t with the county, though the county forced her to jump through hoops. An inspector didn’t like the placement of her garden, or the fence she built around it for privacy.

She made the necessary changes, but two of her neighbors began to harass her in an effort to shut down her garden. One of them stormed onto her property. That irate neighbor also sent out a series of emails to most of the residents on their street in Glen Ellen in which she accused Bianca Maria of being a “drug dealer.” Bianca Maria countered with emails of her own. The subject line read, “Bullying on H. Road.” (I’ve used the initial and not the name itself).

The email went on to recount the harassment she experienced for much of the summer and that upset her mother. It didn’t sit well with her four-year-old son, either. Not surprisingly, Bianca Maria called the sheriff’s department. A deputy arrived and urged her to work with her neighbors, to sort out the issues and not press charges. Right now, there’s a kind of truce on H. Road. Right now the neighborhood is deeply divided. One can almost feel the bitterness when one walks up hill from Arnold Drive.

The Glen Ellen drama is emblematic of the divisions in Sonoma County, where citizens voted last November to legalize the adult use of marijuana. At the same time, there are citizens all across the county who would like to outlaw marijuana and go back to the days of “Reefer Madness.” Indeed, at times H. Road seems caught up in the madness concerning marijuana that governed the United States for decades and that still rules large swaths of the country.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions would like to turn back the clock and eliminate medical marijuana, which became the law in California in 1996. Since then, twenty-five states followed California’s example. Twenty-five states haven’t. The nation as a whole is as divided on the subject of marijuana as H. Road. What happens in Washington, D.C. will affect Bianca Maria and her neighbors, and what happens on H. Road and elsewhere across the country will affect pot politics in Washington, D.C.

If Bianca Maria is “a drug dealer,” as some of her neighbors insist, she’s unlike any drug dealer depicted on TV and in the movies. A daughter, a mother, a businesswoman, an environmentalist and a pot smoker, she belongs to the wave of women all across Sonoma County who are cultivating cannabis and who are showing that they can grow pot as well as any guy.

Jonah Raskin is the author of “Natives, Newcomers, Exiles, Fugitives: Northern California Writers and Their Work.”