{"id":7645,"date":"2017-08-11T17:24:50","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T17:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com?p=2747908&amp;preview_id=2747908"},"modified":"2017-08-11T17:24:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T17:24:50","slug":"can-marijuana-rescue-coal-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/can-marijuana-rescue-coal-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Can marijuana rescue coal country?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/can-marijuana-rescue-coal-country\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"large-10 large-centered small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Aug 11, 2017, 10:35 am \u2022 Updated: Aug 11, 2017, 11:12 am<span class=\"single-comments-link\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <strong>Mark Lynn Ferguson<\/strong>, <em> Special To The Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Johnsie Gooslin spent Jan. 16, 2015, tending his babies \u2013 that\u2019s what he called his marijuana plants. More than 70 of them were growing in a hydroponic system of his own design. Sometimes, he\u2019d stay in his barn for 16 hours straight, perfecting his technique.<\/p>\n<p>That night, he left around 8 o\u2019clock to head home. The moon was waning, down to a sliver, which left the sky as dark as the ridges that lined it. As he pulled away, the lights from his late-model Kia swept across his childhood hollow and his parents\u2019 trailer, which stood just up the road from the barn. He turned onto West Virginia Route 65. Crossing Mingo County, he passed the Delbarton Mine, where he had worked on and off for 14 years before his back gave out. Though Johnsie was built like a linebacker, falling once from a coal truck and twice from end loaders had taken a toll. At 36, his disks were a mess, and sciatica sometimes shot pain to his knees.<\/p>\n<p>Still, he managed to lift the buckets that held his plants; friends sometimes helped. In another part of the barn, they had set up a man cave with a big-screen TV and girlie posters. When they weren\u2019t transplanting and trimming, they played video games and discussed their passion for cultivating pot. None of them had studied marijuana like Johnsie, but they all loved growing, seeing it not just as a hobby or a way to make a buck but as an act of compassion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMostly the people that bought were older men and women, Vietnam veterans and people that\u2019s been hurt,\u201d Johnsie told me. \u201cI mean, to hear them say, \u2018You know, ever since I started smoking your pot, I ain\u2019t touched a pain pill \u2026 \u201d He trailed off, shaking his head, but it was clear what he meant. In a state with one of the nation\u2019s highest rates of overdose deaths, most of them opioid-related, it felt good to give people an alternative, one that even the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/07\/12\/marijuana-overdose-statistics-dea\/83506\/\">U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said this year has never caused an overdose<\/a> fatality.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes after leaving the barn, Johnsie parked in the light of his own trailer, a newly remodeled 14-by-60 that he shared with his wife, Faye, and 14-year-old daughter Bethany. His phone rang. It was a neighbor from Rutherford Branch Road, where the barn stood. Cops were there, asking about him.<\/p>\n<p>Inside, Johnsie dialed his mother. Two officers, she told him, were standing in her living room. She handed the phone to one of them. Though he didn\u2019t have a search warrant for the barn, the officer said he could get one, according to Johnsie. \u201cBut,\u201d he said, \u201cI think it would be better if you come and talk to me first.\u201d (This account is based largely on Johnsie\u2019s recollection. Neither arresting officer was permitted to be interviewed for this story, but it is consistent with a description of Johnsie\u2019s case in the 2015 West Virginia State Police Annual Report.)<\/p>\n<p>Johnsie hung up. He\u2019d placed cameras around his building and vented it out the back, but people were packed tight into that narrow hollow. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out what was inside. Turning to his wife, he said, \u201cLook, I\u2019m going up there, and I\u2019m going to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With Skoal tobacco, his one chemical vice, pressed tightly against his cheek, Johnsie drove back to Rutherford Branch Road, where officers met him outside. \u201cIt\u2019s like this. I got your dad. I got a lot of pot on him,\u201d Senior Trooper D.L. Contos told him. This was no surprise. Sam Gooslin had smoked pot for decades, and half of Johnsie\u2019s pot went to him. His dad relied on it to ease pain from lung cancer, a new ailment layered atop others \u2013 diabetes, a stroke, four heart attacks and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a Vietnam veteran,\u201d Johnsie recalls Contos saying. \u201cI respect that. I don\u2019t want to see a veteran go to jail. If you make me go get a search warrant, I\u2019m taking you to jail, and I\u2019m gonna get your dad on felony conspiracy charges because he\u2019s taking the blame on what\u2019s going on up there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnsie had only one option. He crossed the road and unlocked the barn, opening a series of doors to release a flood of light. The officers paused. One said he had busted hundreds of marijuana operations and had never seen anything like this. For the next two hours, Johnsie walked the officers through his process. He explained the role of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/01\/30\/lights-greenhouse\/68388\/\">lights<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2016\/12\/23\/commercial-cannabis-cultivation-tips\/69153\/\">hydroponics<\/a>; why he placed three plants in a bucket, not one; how he used gibberellic acid to push the plants at just the right time. At the end, he recalls Contos telling him they had to seize his plants, but, referring to Johnsie\u2019s equipment and supplies, he said, \u201cI\u2019m not going to take it away. One day, this might be legal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first time Johnsie planted pot, he was 14. He stole a single seed from his father and buried it. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was doing,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI was just a kid being a kid.\u201d That seed barely grew, but it did take root in a sense. Years later, while still working in the mines, he began reading about marijuana cultivation. Though he\u2019d already learned that he couldn\u2019t smoke it himself (every attempt made his heart race and left him paranoid), the science behind the plant, the act of nurturing it, enthralled him. After he stopped working at the mine about five years ago, and after his father gave him the barn, Johnsie tried growing marijuana again, this time treating the exercise more as a science experiment.<\/p>\n<p>He was actually the third generation of Gooslins with a passion for pot. His father didn\u2019t grow it but smoked it constantly. His grandfather, a former Kentucky constable, was just the opposite. He never used marijuana but sold it to supplement his retirement income. At one time this sort of thing wasn\u2019t uncommon, says 1st Sgt. Michael Smith, who heads West Virginia\u2019s drug-eradication efforts: \u201cIt was generally local individuals that would go back in the woods and, similar to the image of old-time moonshiners, they would get them a clandestine location and take care of their crops. Families would grow marijuana. \u2026 They would hand it down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reliable estimates of the size of the marijuana market in West Virginia are hard to come by. According to the group NORML, which advocates for marijuana legalization, pot has been West Virginia\u2019s most valuable cash crop for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Lately, however, marijuana has been overshadowed by opioids, which are devastating parts of coal country. In Mingo County, where Johnsie lives, a single pharmacy pumped out 9 million hydrocodone pills over just two years, according to a 2016 investigation by the Charleston Gazette-Mail. That was enough for every man, woman and child in the area to have 350 of them. Hydrocodone was part of a new generation of opioids that pharmaceutical companies introduced in the United States in the past two decades and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/06\/22\/how-culpable-are-opioid-makers-ask-your-states-attorney-general\/82159\/\">heavily marketed to doctors<\/a> as posing minimal risk for addiction. That, of course, wasn\u2019t true, and as government officials cracked down on prescription opioids, they became prohibitively expensive, pushing addicts in West Virginia and elsewhere toward illegal substitutes, including heroin, which ran about a third the price.<\/p>\n<p>The Mountain State is now ground zero of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/08\/01\/white-house-opioid-commission-trump-national-emergency\/84986\/\">one of the worst drug crises in our nation\u2019s history<\/a>. In 2015, 725 people died of overdoses in the state, the highest rate per capita in the country. Last year, that figure grew another 15 percent, reaching a staggering 844 deaths. That averages to one West Virginian dying from an overdose every 11 hours. Eighty-six percent of the state\u2019s overdose deaths in 2016 involved an opioid.<\/p>\n<p>While there are no easy answers to the opioid crisis, a growing body of research suggests that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/08\/pennsylvania-medical-marijuana-cannabis-opioids\/80488\/\">legalizing marijuana could help<\/a>. More than a dozen states with legal medical marijuana have recorded significant drops in overdose deaths from other drugs, including heroin, according to a 2014 study in JAMA: the Journal of the American Medical Association. A 2015 pilot study by Yasmin Hurd at the Behavioral Health System\u2019s Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai found that cannabidiol, a compound in marijuana, minimized cravings for opioids, making it easier for participants to stop using them. And unlike methadone, an opioid that is used in drug treatment to minimize cravings for opioids, cannabidiol was not addictive. Hurd is pursuing further research but argues that legislators must address this epidemic now. \u201cYou can\u2019t wait for all the ducks to be lined up,\u201d she says. \u201cYou sometimes have to make bold steps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Attempts to decriminalize marijuana in West Virginia date to at least 2010, but for years no bills made it out of committee. As of 2015, the year of Johnsie\u2019s arrest, stalwarts in the Republican-dominated legislature still could not bring themselves to legalize marijuana for medical use. But younger lawmakers would not let the issue go.<\/p>\n<p>One of the leading proponents of loosening restrictions on marijuana in West Virginia is Democratic state Del. Mike Pushkin, who represents parts of Charleston and its surrounding areas. Pushkin is an unconventional pol \u2013 a cabdriver and folk musician who has spoken about his own struggles with addiction. He once told the Charleston Gazette-Mail how he spent 11 years living from crisis to crisis. \u201cI\u2019m sure there were times that my mother would have thought it more likely she would be attending my funeral than she would be attending my swearing-in at the Capitol,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>It took a spiritual awakening to get his addiction under control. To stay sober, he told me, he volunteers at detox facilities and talks to addicts in area jails. This experience informs his policy positions. He\u2019s sure West Virginia can\u2019t arrest its way out of this drug crisis. And he has pushed his colleagues to consider marijuana in a new light. \u201cWhile <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/18\/david-clarke-marijuana-heroin-homeland-security-post\/79704\/\">marijuana is described as a gateway drug<\/a>, that\u2019s not proven,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat is proven is that a lot of people who are prescribed painkillers get hooked on heroin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though he spent only 14 hours in jail, Johnsie returned to his trailer a different man. The police did not confiscate his equipment, but he was still charged with a felony for cultivating marijuana. That, combined with his back problems, made it nearly impossible to find work. He was not allowed to leave the state, which meant he could not move to a place where he could grow marijuana legally.<\/p>\n<p>With his $1,000 or so in monthly pot sales gone and Faye making just $9 an hour as a cashier at a gas station, cash was dwindling fast. They had begun receiving $129 in food stamps, but that didn\u2019t help much. \u201cThree people eats more than that in a week,\u201d Faye says.<\/p>\n<p>Johnsie\u2019s lawyer, Wesley Kent Varney, chose for strategic reasons not to rush his case, instead engaging in a slow, courteous dialogue with Mingo County Prosecuting Attorney Teresa Maynard. He thought he could get Johnsie off on a technicality, in part because the pot the police confiscated later disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>Varney told me police also found no marijuana \u201cbricked up\u201d for shipping, no scales, not even any large sums of money \u2013 making this a low-priority case for Maynard. Even when she proposed a plea bargain that would have put Johnsie under home arrest, Varney sat on the option, hoping to get a better deal. (Maynard declined to comment for this story.)<\/p>\n<p>That approach kept Johnsie free, but his family\u2019s losses started adding up. Debt collectors began calling. Both their cars were repossessed. \u201cBefore I was arrested,\u201d he says, \u201cwe was both pushing an 800 credit score. Wasn\u2019t nothing we couldn\u2019t buy on credit at any given time. Now, I think mine is 500 and hers is like 470. Pitiful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About a year after his arrest, the bank came for their trailer \u2013 the nicest place Johnsie had ever lived, and just about the only home his teen daughter could remember. The family got 24 hours\u2019 notice. Their sole option was moving to the battered trailer next door that had passed hands in Faye\u2019s family over and over until it was empty and rusting with bent underpinnings and insulation peeking through holes in the walls.<\/p>\n<p>It was raining that day, and no one could help. That left Johnsie, with his bad back, and Faye to carry their belongings through the mud. They hauled all they could but ended up leaving a lot. \u201cWe worked ourselves to death,\u201d Faye recalls, \u201cand we just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t go outside when the repo guys came. Instead, she watched through a leaky aluminum-framed window as they hitched up their trailer and hauled it off. Her living-room furniture, desk and bed frame were still inside.<\/p>\n<p>After that, Johnsie rarely left home. During the days, while his daughter was at school and Faye at work, he alternated between his computer chair, where he read articles about marijuana reform elsewhere (Massachusetts, Maine, California and Nevada would all legalize adult use of the drug in 2016), and the window. There, he\u2019d chew tobacco and stare at bare soil, where their old home had rested.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"figure wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/can-marijuana-rescue-coal-country.jpg\" alt=\"west virginia marijuana grow\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" class=\"size-large wp-image-85857\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Johnsie Gooslin, 38, looks around in the yard where his home used to stand before it was repossessed. He currently lives in the trailer on the left. (Sarah L. Voisin, Washington Post )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In May 2016, Pushkin introduced a bill in the West Virginia House of Delegates to let adults grow, use and possess a limited quantity of marijuana, provided that they paid a one-time fee of $500. That month, he told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that he didn\u2019t have high hopes for its passage. He was right: It wasn\u2019t even debated in a committee. But it did spark media attention and prompted an eye-opening brief from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, which showed that a marijuana tax could be a boon for the state, generating as much as $194 million annually if the drug were legal for adult use. That would be enough to eliminate West Virginia\u2019s projected deficit and create a $183 million surplus, a dramatic improvement in a place that\u2019s been slashing everything from higher education to Medicaid as it tries to stay afloat.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/04\/04\/west-virginia-medical-marijuana-bill-house-approval\/76637\/\">Pushkin\u2019s argument for marijuana legalization<\/a> had a strong economic component. \u201cThey\u2019re not having the types of budget issues in Colorado that we\u2019re having here,\u201d he told the Charleston Gazette-Mail. In Colorado, where pot is now fully legalized, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2016\/10\/26\/colorado-marijuana-economic-impact-billion-2015\/66105\/\">industry created 18,000 full-time jobs<\/a> in 2015 alone. New Frontier Data, a financial consultancy in Washington, estimates that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/02\/22\/report-united-states-marijuana-sales-projections-2025\/74059\/\">by 2020 the marijuana industry will create upward of a quarter of a million jobs<\/a> in the United States, more than manufacturing is expected to create.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to imagine anywhere that could use these jobs more than West Virginia. Since the 1980s, both coal and manufacturing in the Mountain State have been in a steep decline. As these industries have dried up, so have others that rely on them \u2013 such as freight rail, which has cut jobs by the thousands and begun pulling up tracks.<\/p>\n<p>Smart leaders would have diversified their economy decades ago, but that didn\u2019t happen here. \u201cWe\u2019ve been relying on the extraction industries for far too long,\u201d Pushkin told me, noting that West Virginia is not just experiencing a budget crisis or even a drug crisis. The state\u2019s population is shrinking; many who stay are depressed by their prospects and taking poor care of themselves. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper published in February found a positive correlation between a county\u2019s unemployment rate and its opioid overdose death rate. And a link between unemployment and drug use was also confirmed by a meta-analysis of 28 studies, including 10 done in the United States, that appeared in the June issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy. Diabetes rates exceed 150 percent of the U.S. average in some parts of West Virginia, and obesity is just as severe. Pushkin sees the opioid crisis as more of a symptom of the underlying economic one. \u201cWhen you see countries that are based on one industry, those are mainly Third World countries,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re really like a Third World country inside the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his rundown trailer, with no end to his legal limbo in sight, Johnsie soon faced another setback. His father had begun having seizures. They became so routine that Johnsie was not alarmed when, on June 24, 2016, he got a call informing him that Sam Gooslin was bound for the hospital. But this time, when Johnsie arrived and said his name at the nurse\u2019s station, a chaplain approached. \u201cI knew then it wasn\u2019t good,\u201d he recalls. No one was sure, but they thought his father might have had another stroke. This one was just too big.<\/p>\n<p>As the two-year anniversary of his arrest approached, Johnsie found himself without his father, unable to pursue his passion and flat broke. He grew more reclusive and stopped having people over because he was ashamed of where he lived. \u201cGained 20 pounds,\u201d he says. \u201cJust sitting and waiting on death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But just as he began to feel like he was fighting a losing battle, Maynard, who had lost her reelection bid, decided to step down early. The incoming county prosecuting attorney, Jonathan Jewell, was inheriting a mound of cases. Varney was quick to point out a case that the new prosecutor could settle fast \u2013 one where the defendant, Johnsie, had kept his nose clean for two years while on bond. This was a gift to Jewell, who scheduled a hearing for Jan. 31. (Jewell did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n<p>For several nights prior, Johnsie lay awake, thinking about all that had happened. Beside his sleeping wife, with his daughter just a thin, splintered wall away, he tried to picture their future. He couldn\u2019t work coal, not with his back like it was, or even stand at a register all day. That and growing marijuana was about all he was qualified to do.<\/p>\n<p>He could probably get a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2016\/11\/17\/marijuana-jobs-california-employment-guide\/67817\/\">job at a legal growhouse in Californ<\/a>ia. He knew somebody who knew somebody who owned one. But Johnsie was a good-old-boy conservative. He supported Trump and pokes fun at liberals. He loves guns and four-wheeling. \u201cI just don\u2019t know if I can handle California,\u201d he once told me. Plus, how could he uproot Bethany while she was doing so well in school \u2013 taking advanced placement classes? He wouldn\u2019t dare do anything to upset her future.<\/p>\n<p>The morning of his hearing, Johnsie rose bleary-eyed and, with Faye, drove under a bright winter sky. The 20-minute ride was quiet. They didn\u2019t know what to expect at the Mingo County Courthouse. Inside, things moved fast. Each lawyer said a few words, and within 10 minutes, West Virginia Circuit Court Judge Miki Thompson dismissed the case without prejudice. For the first time in two years, Johnsie was truly free. He and Faye drove back to their side of the county and, at the gas station where she worked, celebrated with ice cream cones.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"figure wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/can-marijuana-rescue-coal-country-1.jpg\" alt=\"west virginia marijuana\" width=\"800\" height=\"496\" class=\"size-large wp-image-85853\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Johnsie Gooslin hung a giant marijuana leaf on the wall of his shed which left a mark on the wall. (Sarah L. Voisin, Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Meanwhile in Charleston, Pushkin and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2016\/03\/07\/west-virginia-marijuana-prison-bill-sentencing-medical-tabled-after-delegates-speech-on-medical-marijuana\/49666\/\">like-minded lawmakers<\/a> saw an opening to try again for legalization. In late 2016, both gubernatorial candidates had publicly supported legalizing medical marijuana. And some of their colleagues were showing a new openness to it. In February, he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/03\/30\/west-virginia-medical-marijuana-senate\/76399\/\">backed legislation focusing on medical marijuana<\/a>. While it met with familiar opposition in the House of Delegates, a similar bill wove through the state Senate with bipartisan support. This forced the House speaker and other old-guard Republicans to soften their stance. The bill not only made it out of committee, it was debated on the House floor \u2013 and an amended version passed.<\/p>\n<p>The bill permits patients to use pot derivatives, such as oils and pills, but prohibits smoking the plant or growing it at home. Just 10 growers will be authorized statewide, and the price to play will be steep \u2013 a $50,000 registration fee. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/04\/19\/west-virginia-medical-marijuana-legal\/77790\/\">On April 19, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, D, signed it into law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Many lawmakers who voted for the bill were reacting to public pressure and media scrutiny. And although the law passed, there is no certainty that the trend toward loosening restrictions on marijuana will continue. \u201cClose to half the people who voted for that [legislation] are against medical cannabis,\u201d Pushkin told me, \u201cbut we got something on the books. I do believe we can fix it.\u201d A bill he introduced to tax medical marijuana is in committee. Beyond that, Pushkin admits, he is still figuring out what to do next.<\/p>\n<p>Johnsie doesn\u2019t like coffee. Rather than order anything at the coffee shop where he and I are meeting Pushkin on a Friday in May, he waits at an empty table, nervous and fidgeting. I get hot tea, and we talk about how unlikely this sit-down is. With his background, Johnsie never imagined he\u2019d talk to a man who could help undo laws that ruined his life. But when I told Pushkin about Johnsie weeks before and asked if they could meet, the delegate said yes.<\/p>\n<p>Coming off an 11-hour shift of cab driving, one that took him clear to Ohio and back, Pushkin walks in while wiping rainwater from his shirt. Both men wear jeans. Pushkin\u2019s jeans have a hole over the left pocket. Johnsie\u2019s are paired with a button-down for the occasion. Though neither looks their part \u2013 a West Virginia delegate and a former pot grower \u2013 they somehow appear to belong at the same table.<\/p>\n<p>With a handshake and a nod, they begin a slow discourse on the new marijuana law. Johnsie may have found a financial backer, a Michigan businessman who visits Mingo County\u2019s ATV trail a few times a year, but breaking into legal marijuana production would be much easier if the fee were lower. He references a provision that\u2019s popular in other states, one that assigns \u201ccaregivers\u201d to patients. These licensed professionals help people get and use their marijuana. They can even grow it for them. By his own admission, Pushkin doesn\u2019t know a lot about the provision, but he\u2019s always looking for new ideas. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t mind going back and trying to get that in,\u201d he later tells me, showing the kind of openness that defines his vision for West Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>Pushkin still sees tremendous potential in his home state. Charleston, for instance, has the kind of \u201ccultural capital\u201d that attracts newer industries \u2013 prewar buildings galore, gritty warehouses begging to become lofts, and indie businesses that include a sprawling bookstore-cafe-gallery and a new art-house cinema. In many ways, it resembles Pittsburgh or Asheville, North Carolina, before those cities became hipster meccas, and Pushkin looks to those places as models. Legalizing recreational use of marijuana could be another asset, a way to boost tourism and retain young people. \u201cI want to fight to make it the kind of state friends want to move back to,\u201d he later says. \u201cI want to help make this a cool place again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The scruffy delegate pauses to sip his coffee, and Johnsie fiddles with his phone. Quiet passes between them until Johnsie begins to talk about his passion for marijuana. \u201cI\u2019d fall asleep at night studying,\u201d he says, \u201cwith the laptop still on.\u201d He describes the intricacies of growing, his hydroponic technique, how he kept his plants budding.<\/p>\n<p>Pushkin looks down. When he first learned about Johnsie, he said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry that this prohibition has turned somebody who was just trying to help their father into a criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sitting across from this man who lost everything, who had been stripped of his home and livelihood, who is no longer permitted to pursue his passion, Pushkin grips his mug. \u201cThis is the kind of story that needs to be told in the statehouse,\u201d he says and shakes his head.<\/p>\n<p>The two talk a few minutes more until Pushkin\u2019s coffee is gone. He stands up and \u2013 though many politicians wouldn\u2019t have even entertained a conversation with a former marijuana grower \u2013 he extends his hand. \u201cI\u2019m going to give you my number,\u201d he says, looking Johnsie in the eye. \u201cCall anytime you need help.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After they part, Johnsie and I go for pizza; then he drives an hour in the rain, back to Mingo County, where he and Faye have been keeping their expenses low. She has saved just enough to buy a used car. He now drives a 17-year-old truck inherited from an uncle and spends his days making low-cost improvements to his trailer.<\/p>\n<p>While hanging drywall one day to cover torn wallpaper and exposed wires, he deliberates on his future. He still hates the idea of moving to another state. West Virginia gets ahold of you, he once told me, and won\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe he can get one of those 10 marijuana-farm licenses. Maybe the legislature will make it easier for regular people to take part in this new industry. He\u2019s not sure how exactly, but he\u2019s determined to grow his \u201cbabies\u201d again.<\/p>\n<p>He beams at the thought. \u201cHook the water and electricity up, and I\u2019d have seeds in the cups tonight,\u201d he muses and spits chewing tobacco into an empty bottle. \u201cI\u2019m ready to go anytime, when the law says you can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>According to the group NORML, which advocates for marijuana legalization, cannabis has already been West Virginia&#8217;s most valuable cash crop for 20 years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[306,6813,77,5667,56,9,5019,6983,1,3,7125,61,1338,1736],"tags":[2884,6818,2655,5673,2636,5022,6984,7126,3908],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}