The Emerald Triangle growers provide the influx of money behind the success of much of alternative culture.  Non-profits like schools, community centers and volunteer fire departments have felt the nourishing flow of marijuana money. Arts, culture, and music benefit from the resiny hands of growers handing over money to support them.

But it isn’t just the non-profits that benefit. Businesses with a unique bent have been nursed through the first difficult years by the mother’s milk of cash pumped out by the marijuana subculture. Music for Little People, Blue Canoe, Cypress Grove and Alternative Energy Engineering are just a few that I believe benefited from growers patronizing their young businesses.

A piece in Offgrid.net explores the way Alternative Energy  Engineering flourished because of the flow of money from the cannabis blackmarket. Businesses like these now stand on their own.  But I wonder what other exciting new step children of our greater society might die without the warm flow of money from local growers.  Here’s hoping that our county government steps up with an ordinance that ensures not only the prosperity of the local mom-and-pop growers but also the prosperity of our non-profits, our art world, and our business community.