On May 6, Snohomish County Councilmembers voted 4 to 1 to ban legal marijuana business owners from operating in the agriculturally compatible rural 5-acre zone (R5) of the county.

The R5 zone is where urban sprawl meets rural protectionism, and has long been the battleground between developers, agricultural interests and isolationists. The Snohomish County Agricultural Board and the Planning Commission concurred that marijuana production and processing is compatible in the R5 Zone, a sentiment shared by thousands of illegal operators who have operated in the zone for decades.

Unfortunately, a few neighbors don’t agree. Not In My Backyard sentiment coupled with the righteous anti-pot group NOPE, No Operational Pot Enterprises, divided council on how to implement state law. What started out as a basic land-use issue was derailed by citizens concerned about the children and property values. After 7 months of wasted tax payer’s money on needless deliberations based on the reefer-mad rhetoric of a vocal moral minority, the council voted to support a ban.

Thirty-six state-licensed operations are already up and running, 19 of which are in the R5 zone. Without a single legitimate complaint registered against them, nor any evidence that their neighbors’ property values have decreased, farmers are being told to move off properties they’ve held in their families for decades. Over 400 well-paid rural jobs have been created by these businesses, hundreds of ancillary businesses have been launched to support these operations, and millions of dollars have already been generated in sales that the county would have directly benefited from via the Revenue Sharing scheme currently being worked-out in Olympia.

Every ban, moratorium and restriction enacted by our politicians works to impede legal marijuana operators and keeps the underground economy thriving. If legalization fails, the black market will continue to grow unfettered. For the majority of people who voted in favor of I-502 to regulate and tax marijuana, when are we going to start holding our public officials accountable?

Jamie Curtismith is a resident of Everett.