Over the weekend, the Cow Palace hosted The International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which is the first time such a show in the United States allowed on-site pot smoking. Fifteen thousand people attended most of them eagerly awaiting the day marijuana is legalized.  Yet a group of people purporting to represent Humboldt Growers urged them to vote against the Tax Cannabis initiative which is on this Fall’s ballot.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle,

The event hosted a panel discussion Saturday on how legalization would impact large California growers. A contingent from Humboldt County argued against the ballot initiative, complaining it could devastate a key local industry.

“Radical” Russ Belville, the outreach coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that if California’s initiative passed, he expected home-growers to enter the market and drive prices down.

But he was unsympathetic to the group from Humboldt County.

“To that end, I would say, ‘Tough,’ ” Belville said. “We should have to put people in prison so you can continue to make a living?”

Chat rooms and comments on articles across the net are showing an ever widening and bitter split between growers and consumers as the cannabis consumer increasingly feels that the Humboldt growers are  greedy people willing to sacrifice the lives of others so that they can make money.

Sadly, the perception is sometimes true but at least as often, it is false. Too bad that information isn’t getting out to the smokers.

In the coming years as legislation on cannabis issues is pondered, growers will need those same consumers to be on their side.