May 29, 2015 6:38 AM

Banning flatulence: Finally, government has a purpose

With the passage of an amendment to Pendleton city code to contain the smell of marijuana, one man saw a chance to rein in lingering bodily odors as well. “While farting may be legal in Oregon, many (including myself) are offended by the flatulent stench,” said Peter Walters’ letter to the editor in the East Oregonian. He goes on to complain that businesses and homeowners can’t seem to contain farts, and calls on the city to address the problem…. “The Mayor and a few on the council have made it clear that they want to fight this legalization with every thing they can,” wrote Walters in a Facebook message. “Meanwhile, everyone in this town thinks that the city council is a joke because they spend their time on stupid crap like lingering pot smells while citizens complain about ten-year-old pot holes.”

A couple months from now, recreational marijuana will be legal (medical marijuana is and has been for some time) in Oregon…which may account for the unusually cloudy weather of late. While a plurality of voters approved legalization, the demographics of the Beaver State are to say the least lopsided, which means one needs to look outside the numbers for the real story. The vast majority of the state’s population lives in the fairly Liberal Portland metropolitan area and down through the Willamette Valley to Eugene and Springfield. The rest of the state might as well be called West Idaho, because it has far more in common ideologically with Idaho than Oregon. Of course, the population outside the Willamette Valley is negligible, so the moral of the story is that what Portland wants, Portland gets.

Legalizing marijuana may be popular west of the Cascades, but in more Conservative areas on the east side such as Pendleton, the idea has met with no small amount of resistance. Pendleton’s city council has gone out of their way to impede the availability of and access to legalized marijuana. The council recently lifted their moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries, but city business licensing rules prohibit licensing any business that would be illegal under federal law. The city council can (and does) claim to have done their part…only to be thwarted by the evil, nasty feds. Damn the bad luck, eh?

As one might imagine, not every Pendleton resident sees sense and sensibility in the city council’s war on marijuana. Peter Walters’ letter, while tongue in cheek, was an expression his frustration over the council’s perceived obsession with marijuana as they ignored real issues facing Pendleton. Walters reasoned that, if the city council was so concerned with offensive smells, perhaps it was time the city began looking to ban other assaults on the olfactory sensibilities of the good people of Pendleton. Flatulence seems like a good place to start if your goal is to highlight the absurdity of what your government is committing tax dollars to. That Walters is garnering the attention he is can’t be making the city council members happy…and that’s probably the best thing to come out of this.

Perhaps the authoritarian drug warriors will wake up and recognize the absurdity of continuing to stand on the wrong side of history and public opinion. They don’t have to like marijuana- clearly they don’t- but they’ll eventually do the right thing, if for no other reason than to stave off a revolt. Or if not, perhaps they’ll just go ahead and ban flatulence, which will undoubtedly be the death knell for any Mexican restaurants unfortunate enough to do business within Pendleton’s city limits.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on May 29, 2015 6:38 AM.

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