California, Bolinas

[palmspringsbum]

Old Bolinas values, new drugs don’t mesh

Meghan Gilliss
The Point Reyes Light
2006-12-13

Bolinas is a place where kids will say to cops, “it’s just weed, man,” and get away with it, according to Sheriff’s Deputy Stephen Debrunner. It’s a place where a resident who wanted to get high once called the sheriff’s department to complain that a neighbor wouldn’t share the pot plants in his garden. The responding deputy arrived on the scene, saw that the plants in question were but few in number, and left without issuing any citations. It’s also a place where a string of recent drug-related overdoses have spurred community interest in rethinking the town’s attitude toward drugs.

It’s a town that likes to think of itself as existing outside of the law – certain substances, like marijuana, take on the accepted status of “Bolinas legal” – and sheriff’s deputies try to respect that stance as much as possible, taking a “spirit of the law” approach to policing, Debrunner said.

But the longstanding, socially acceptable “hippie drugs” like pot and mushrooms are being joined by a new breed of adulterated and often times unidentifiable pills and powders. Ecstasy is imitated by bathtub concoctions: methamphetamines “stepped on” with everything from laxatives to rat poison and cut with acid – too much for children’s delicate neurological systems to handle, said Dale Johnson, a nurse practioner at the Bolinas Family Practice and mother of a Brady Bunch of nine.

After Bolinas’ prominent street figure Rick Klaes died of alcohol consumption, several teens overdosed on mixed drugs, and another was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, a group of concerned citizens met at the community center for the second time in a month to address the town’s drug problem and to postulate on possible ways to move toward a solution.

“I think we have a particularly difficult problem in Bolinas,” said Toni McDonald, of the outpatient rehab group OLAF.

How can Bolinas reconcile the community’s fundamental ideals of personal liberty – “this more open-ended belief system in individual freedom and individualistic way of living,” in McDonald’s words – with an attempt to clean up drugs from its streets?

Bad Reputation


Watching her peers deal drugs in plain sight outside the student center at Tamalpais High School, a 16-year-old Bolinas girl, then a freshman, couldn’t help but wonder how they weren’t busted. As she watched a group of 15-year-olds drinking alcohol and smoking pot outside a reggae concert at the Bolinas Community Center a few weeks ago, she wondered, “Why aren’t the cops doing anything? How can they just sit there?”

Some of her friends from Mill Valley aren’t allowed to come to Bolinas, where high school kids show up on weekends to get trashed. Most Bolinas parents don’t actually support underage drinking, the girl said, but there’s a perception amongst Tam students that anything goes in Bolinas. On Fridays kids post their plans to party in Bolinas on their MySpace accounts.

There’s a scene of older people that hang around the beach, ready to supply Bolinas’ youth with whatever they want, Johnson said. “They’re very willing to buy alcohol for our kids, to buy cigarettes for our kids, to point in the right direction for whatever drug the kids wants,” she said.

Push/pull with the law

Bolinas is simultaneously resisting and requesting the help of law enforcement. The town is so close-knit that often times, when it comes to uncovering who’s dealing the hard drugs, lips remain sealed – either out of loyalty, a fear of retribution, or out of the simple fear of knocking out one of the town’s few dealers. Whereas someone busted for possession in Novato might turn in their dealer to get a better deal for themselves, someone busted in Bolinas is less likely to talk because doing so might cut off the supply, Debrunner said, as only a few dealers are responsible for a lot of the inflow.

Law enforcement officials weren’t expressly invited to the community meeting, but one deputy sat quietly in attendance, amongst some 50 members of the community.

Relationship to the law

Some have expressed frustration over impotence on the part of law enforcement to handle the drug problem. Some recall a botched sting operation that they feel had the potential to rid the town of what they believe to be a primary source of methamphetamines.

Johnson remembers a time in 1997 when a group of citizens formed to pressure an end to a suspected speed factory that was operating in what is now the Bolinas Garage. “We did get rid of a drug dealer,” she said, explaining that about 20 people regularly met outside of town to share information, then a smaller subset of them approached the owner and convinced him to sell the space to the community.

“It really did clean up the town,” Johnson said.

Deane remembers that the place had a reputation for having speed, and that there seemed to be dealing around it. Deane remembers that a group of parents did meet with the management, but said the sale of the garage was independent of that meeting.

Now, at least some Bolinas residents believe law enforcement can and should play a role in managing the town’s drug problems – which they say range from public drunkenness to party-time pill popping.

Boy on speed

Johnson, who felt what she described as the “dark presence” of a deputy at the back of the Friday meeting, described an incident in which she reported a boy who was clearly on speed. She watched through a window as the responding deputy arrived on the scene. She went over to introduce herself, and the deputy told her he didn’t need her help. In the end, he didn’t do anything to the boy, explaining to Johnson that he only had 15 minutes left on his shift and wasn’t going to get into it. Johnson said the boy could have been saved that day if the deputy had intervened, but instead he went over the edge. The boy, now in his early 30s, is homeless in Sausalito, she said.

Troublesome teens

Some people understand why law enforcement doesn’t always get involved. Describing a recent scene downtown where 200 kids gathered, drinking and smashing glass, making him scared to even come down from the mesa, a man at the meeting sympathized with a lack of law enforcement response: “The police officer’s here, but he’s not going to say anything to them, because there’s 200 kids. And the sheriff has this perception that ‘the town doesn’t give a shit about us, either,’ to the point where they have their patrol car parked in front of the library one day and had all their tires slashed. . . . The town has in some ways brought it on itself.”

In one of at least a couple of similar instances this year, Lt. Anderson had his tires slashed when he was on patrol in Bolinas on July 4. “We’re down there trying to help the community at the community’s request,” he said, adding that he doesn’t let the activities of one individual to flavor his perception of a whole town.

Stinson complains

Mike Bagley grew up in Bolinas, watching his father, a Marin County sheriff, booking the drunks that loitered downtown. Now a Stinson Beach resident, he wonders why people in Bolinas don’t just make complaints so that officers can respond. “That’s what we do in Stinson,” where he now lives, he explained, pointing out that Stinson doesn’t have a problem like the one that’s “obvious” in Bolinas.

Deputy Ron Fode said he thinks there’s just a long-standing habit in Bolinas to allow behavior that isn’t directly threatening to anyone. “As a sheriff’s office, we enforce [public drunkenness] the same in Bolinas as in other communities,” Fode said. “But it’s just a matter of knowing what’s going on, of getting the calls.”

At any given moment, there are only two deputies on patrol for all of West Marin.

On Patrol in Bo

Deputy Debrunner spends four days out of every other week patrolling Beat 41, which spans from Olema to Muir Beach. He spends 75 percent of that time in Bolinas, he said, because that’s where the calls always bring him back to anyway. For the most part, he said, people seem to appreciate his steady presence – people like mothers wanting to bring their children to the library without being frightened by stumbling drunks. Others ask him why he’s hanging around so much.

Sometimes one of the street people acts in such a way that Debrunner has to remove them from the scene, such as was the case on Monday when a 27-year-old man, high on marijuana, was yelling at the sky and cussing at passersby, and at Debrunner himself as he approached him, the deputy said. He added that there’s an attitude in place that “he should be able to be stoned out of his mind – this is Bolinas.”

Generally, Debrunner tries to respect this stance. For one thing, he said, it’s a “heck of a drive” to pick someone up in Bolinas and drive them to San Rafael to book them. But also, he said, “I cut a lot more breaks because they do kind of have their own rules down there.”

Debrunner said the problems that lead kids in Bolinas to experiment with drugs are the same problems faced countywide: “There’s nothing for them to do.” That’s why he takes it easy on kids for minor infractions, like setting up their skate rails and ramps on Brighton Road.

Marijuana use is largely overlooked. “There’s a lot of people that grow their own there, and we’re pretty lenient on that,” a deputy who patrols Bolinas said. “If someone has just two to four plants,” few enough to be considered for personal use only, “we’ll generally leave them alone.” He added that of the person doesn’t have a medical marijuana card, he’ll usually recommend that they get one.

Constricted or dilated pupils

But possession and concoction of methamphetamines is another story. While the mere pothead with dilated pupils goes largely ignored, the meth user with constricted pupils is not granted the same leniency. Possession of methamphetamines is a felony – “It’s go to jail, don’t collect $200,” Debrunner said.

Methamphetamine is highly addictive stimulant that affect the central nervous system, and are manufactured relatively cheaply and easily in clandestine labs by combining ephedrine or psuedophedrine with household cleaners. In its finished form, meth usually appears as a powdery substance in a variety of colors and is sold in pill form, capsules, powder or crystals. Meth is known by a variety of street names, including speed and crank. In its crystal form, it is sometimes referred to as ice, crystal, or glass.

Meth use in Bolinas, for which several arrests have been made recently, has been tied to burglaries and property crimes, Debrunner said. Lately there has been a rash of tool thefts – a custom ratchet set will disappear from a construction site only to reappear in an East Baypawn shop or on Craig’s List, Debrunner said, just so the thief can make a few bucks to buy some more of the white crystals which go for about $20-30 per quarter gram.

The meth users in Bolinas are usually a bit older, Debrunner said – in the 25-35 year range. “They’re usually people who have already gone through the whole chain because it’s a longer high, it’s cheaper,” Debrunner explained. “And it’s abundant.”

It’s adaptable too – it can be smoked, snorted or ingested. Most people smoke it, because the high is immediate, and lasts up to 12 hours.

Smiley’s owner Don Deane pointed to methamphetamines, which have been on the rise in Bolinas for the past decade he said, as the town’s most threatening problem. He said the secondary symptoms of meth use are visible around the town: “You see people on edge, losing good health, losing their teeth. You see significant weight loss that doesn’t seem to be related to anything else,” he said.

Marin County is ideal for meth production because of its wide-open spaces pocked with sheds and barns beyond the surveillance of neighbors. It is close to three major distribution points (San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Rosa). Even so, Debrunner has reason to believe a good deal of the meth being used in Bolinas is being brought in from the East Bay.

“People have come to me and said, ‘if you see the normal drug people acting a little funny, it’s because we’ve had some bad meth come in,’” Debrunner said. “Bad” meth may be cut with toxic fillers, or the cooking time may have been off. Recipes are abundant online and just about anyone can mix some household chemicals together; there’s no quality control.

But there is a form of quality control for ecstasy, which may range from $5-10 per pill, depending on the quality. There is a branding system of sorts: a batch of pills may be marked by symbols stamped on the surface of each little pill – a heart or triples exes, for instance.

Thizzing

The main problem, as Debrunner and most of those in attendance at the meeting see it, is that often kids don’t know what they’re taking. Two recent overdoses – one involving a 12-year-old boy at a house party on the mesa several months ago and one involving a 14-year-old boy outside a reggae concert more recently – were poly-substance situations. The boys were “thizzing,” or tripping on concoctions containing the likes of meth and acid, perhaps complemented by a bit of speed. Emergency room personnel are facing new challenges, as it becomes increasingly difficult to identify the types of drugs inducing an overdose, and so they become harder to treat.

The parents of the 12-year-old actually called the sheriff’s department the day after their son’s overdose to request that he receive a citation – they didn’t feel their son’s two days at the hospital in detox was lesson enough.

Cooperative effort

“The drug problem is a community problem and not just a law enforcement problem,” said Lt. Anderson. “The community needs to take an active role to help. . . . Without that, it’s a long, slow, difficult process.

“We are making some efforts based on some information from the community to make some arrests,” Anderson said, adding that a fear of retribution shouldn’t keep people from coming to him with information, as they can do so anonymously.

One man at the meeting, with gray hair and a matching goatee, acknowledged peoples’ fear to talk, and recommended a safety-in-numbers approach: A citizen’s group should be formed, he said, to confidentially receive information from individuals and deliver it on their behalf to the sheriff’s department.

Deane said that while the sheriff’s department should go after dealers, the town’s youth should come together to protect themselves from falling into bad habits and bad drugs.

“The kids have got to get armed,” Deane said. “They’ve got to communicate amongst each other.”

At the meeting adults insisted that parents need to provide real, honest information about the drugs available to their kids. One man stood up and called on parents to examine their own behavior.

One of Deane’s foster daughters, 18, said kids can learn from a positive example set by parents, but they can also learn from a negative example if their parents become “wackos at home.” She suggested that teens can best learn from each other, and could benefit from an open dialogue with one another at the community center.

The stink-eye approach

Others believe the problem can be handled mano y mano. A trim man with a knit hat, a mustache and leather moccasin-like boots stood up and told a story in a slightly shaky and impassioned voice:

“There’s a whole community in this town – I call them the shadow people because you don’t see them very often – and so it turned out that we rented to one person, and before long my house became quite a gathering place for upwards of 20 people. What is at least one specific action that one person can take? My wife and I faced a moral dilemma, because place yourself in this community with our liberal views, our kind of tolerance for anything as long as you don’t hurt anyone. But as things increased on my property I just had to confront it face-to-face, though this person, by the time I looked into his face, couldn’t even look me in the eyes, couldn’t comprehend what I was saying even when it was written down. . . . I just had to play hard-ball, which was to kick him out. . . . I had to move his personal items out of the house, lock the doors, shut the place up.

“I went to the police about this person, and the others that were core in his group, but nothing was ever done, because they need evidence to make any action. But for me it was a hard thing, just because you have to get your guts up, and you have to confront it face to face.

“Some of them have good jobs, and they make a lot of money, and they are supplying, they are the suppliers, they’re bringing it into the town. Fortunately, I stood up to this person to the point that every time I saw him, I gave him the stink-eye. . . . And he and his cronies, they finally disappeared.”

[palmspringsbum]

Mad Apples

By E.J. Pearcy
The Great Western Pacific Coastal Post
February 2007

Whoa Nelly !! You had to have been at the town meeting about the question of whether there is a problem with drugs here in Bolinas to believe what was said and by whom. "Marijuana is a dangerous, dangerous drug !! ;" was only one of the absurd remarks made by the gang who used the Bolinas Community Center to propel tired, old, dangerous lies into our group psyche.
About a half an hour into the first of these two public meetings; those who wished to complain and name names of their particular scapegoats, but anonymously, seemed to realize the futility of that intention during that specific meeting.

Still, the facilitator suggested that their meeting could simply be moved to another location which would be out of the public purview.

One man noted that such ideas seem like ones that Dick Cheney would be right at home with. The women in charge, who had already previewed their agenda based complaints in earlier private meetings, primarily sought ratification of their previous agreements.

Remember how rotten it seemed when V.P. Cheney made oil policy while sequestered privately with the oil company executives and their private agendas ?? This instance was all the more insidious because it was sponsored and led by the Bolinas Community Center staff and volunteers rather than the Bush White House! Or so it seemed.

Significantly, very few parents of teenagers were present to speak or listen; nor were there any young people participating in the first meeting. The second meeting's youthful participants seemed to consist of a coterie of young folks from the very drug abuse treatment program represented by one of the speakers.

At least one of the presenters and one of the at large teens called upon to speak seemed very stoned as they rambled aimlessly along ad nauseum.

Some of the better observations at the meetings included the need for improved education regarding the truth about drugs beginning with alcohol; and the real costs associated with their abuse. Providing popular activities for our teens as alternatives to drugs, mentoring our youths, encouraging parental oversight and responsibility, accepting community responsibility; and the trained improvement of parental communication skills with teens; were all offered as partial solutions to substance abuse by teens in Bolinas.

The "facilitator" paid excessive homage to Pam Dake. The woman who was very responsible for this meeting: Pam Dake. Pam, twice had to remind her that it was the community, not her, which had called for this meeting. O.K. then.

They opine that their lives have been made more difficult by the other. In this case the targeted scapegoats include but are not, of course, limited to young trouble makers, homeless alcoholics who crowd out the decent folks in our town, out of town "predators," beach partiers, meth heads - absurdly- marijuana smokers including those who are using medical marijuana, ,those who cuss too loud in public, and those who Terry Donohue, a local Realtor, says dress inappropriately.

One beflustered mother asked helplessly: " How can I tell my child not to use drugs when there is "so called medical marijuana ?!"

Oh, heck, why not just tell your child the truth: some people need drugs to relieve medical problems. Some of those drugs are against the law to use without a doctor's permission and are entirely legal with a doctor's permission. Marijuana is one noteworthy example of such a drug. Codeine, cocaine, methedrine, heroin, barbiturates, etc. are further examples. Drinking too much water has proven more deadly. Marijuana has never caused death or serious injury; but has been used for centuries for it's natural healing properties.

LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote, and inhalants have no approved medical uses. Why weren't those extremely dangerous drugs mentioned?? Maybe because the marijuana critics there are especially partial to psychotomimetics.

Then it got surreal enough that it seemed as if Harry J. Anslinger was speaking! (He was the painfully ignorant man whose now laughably hysterical approach toward marijuana was immortalized in the movie: Reefer Madness) . At the first meeting Patty Bradford, a nurse practitioner, stood in for Anslinger ; since he himself, now dead, was unable to attend this meeting. Maybe next time ?!

At the second meeting; Dale Johnson, also a nurse practitioner here, repeated Patty's diagnosis of the problems. Patty had said, as though she was referring to some psychiatric knowledge in the public purview; that marijuana, not infrequently, exacerbates or causes bipolar/manic depression flare ups.

Next she flatly stated that marijuana can also cause psychotic breaks. (Is that more or less than abuse of refined sugar can cause ?) This reporter took the opportunity to question her sources for those astonishing remarks. She said her statements came from her experiences; and further vouched that a friend of hers, a psychologist, said so too. Hmm....

I came away believing that the energy behind calling this community meeting was derived partially from drug addict/alcoholics who blame their failed recovery attempts on others whose "inventory" they preferred to take instead of their own. Resentments and unconscious projections follow the denial of our own shames and shortcomings. Then we see our faults in others and not ourselves; and that sure seems handy to some folks.

That segued into the only half hidden agenda of Carmel-izing this town into the New Bolinas: a happy town of landed gentrification with no homeless, poor or shabby dressers allowed. Then real estate prices and commissions can skyrocket as they once did in Carmel!! You go girls!!

One partial solution to the overdosing by local teens who used unknown substances to do so will be the hiring of a drug tester, appropriately anonymous in this situation. S/he can be prepared to let anyone know reliably, quickly, and without charge the necessary descriptions of the sample(s) brought in for analysis.

We can do better and we should.