It’s all going to pot? Not if the good citizens of Charlton Mass can help it.

For whatever reason, I’ve been listening to a lot of Willie Nelson lately. And for whatever reason, one of the tunes I’m most enjoying is “It’s All Going to Pot.”

Well, it’s all going to pot
Whether we like it or not
The best I can tell
The world’s gone to hell
And we’re sure gonna miss it a lot

It must be the part about the world gone to hell. (I most assuredly am already missing it. A lot.)

But way out west in Charlton, Massachusetts, a rural outpost of Worcester County, things may not be going to pot.

A few years back, Nathan Benjamin, Jr. lost his orchard/winery to a fire. His mortgage lender grabbed the insurance payout, leaving Benjamin without the means to rebuild. So he decided to sell.

But the potential buyer, Valley Green Grow, has no intention of offering tractor rides, hard cider tastings, or pick-your-own apples. Instead, it wants to level off the hilltop orchard and construct a $100 million, 1-million-square-foot marijuana cultivation and processing facility with six indoor greenhouses, protected by fortress-like security and replete with its own gas-fired 18 megawatt power plant.

If it wins local approval for the gargantuan project, Valley Green Grow has promised the town a windfall nearly as large: up to $7 million annually, plus $500,000 up front to fund the design of a new police and fire station.(Source: Boston Globe)

Sure that says “up to”, but even a couple of million would be a lot of loot in Charlton’s coffers. Even the upfront $500K would be.

Despite how green are the promises of Valley Green Grow, a number of the citoyens aren’t jumping for joy. They’re:

…arguing that the industrial-style facility shouldn’t be allowed on an agricultural property and accusing Charlton’s elected leaders of negotiating the payments in secret. They also say the project could be an environmental “nightmare,” and claim it will dent the value of nearby homes and damage the town’s reputation.

As someone who grew up in Worcester County, I wouldn’t be all that concerned about Charlton’s reputation. Not that there’s anything wrong with Charlton. I even spent a week there once, the summer after my father died, when my mother rented a rather cool little stone house for a week on Little Nugget Lake. It’s just that there’s not all that much that’s right with Charlton, either. If you like rural and pokey, fine. But I wouldn’t say that Charlton has much of a reputation in any direction.

But the thought of an MJ business blowing in, has some in the town on a war footing.

The war now includes multiple lawsuits, a dizzying series of contradictory bylaws, and mutual accusations of bad faith.

While war rages, the company – which is run by a doctor – is making plans for their complex, which they hope will:

…house five smaller licensed recreational and medical marijuana operators as tenants, offering a turnkey option for companies that would rather pay rent and share costs than spend millions building their own growing and processing facilities.The company plans to grow marijuana in the sixth greenhouse and forge ahead with research on the drug’s medical uses.

Meanwhile, Benjamin is sitting there in limbo, annoyed that his neighbors are being so oppositional. He’s wondering:

…“what’s wrong with Charlton being at the forefront of medical marijuana research? So what? Charlton used to be known in Boston as a cow town, because we raised cattle here — wouldn’t it be great if we were known as a biotech community?” Opponents of Valley Green Grow, he concluded, “are just afraid of the word ‘marijuana.’”

His opponents, naturally, say they’re not anti-grass, just anti this project.

As for Charlton being known in Boston as a “cow town.” I’m guessing that I’m one of four people in this city who’ve even heard of Charlton, let alone been there. (My brother Rich would be one of he other ones. It really was kind of a fun time at Little Nugget. Because of all the cedar trees in the area, the water was sort of tea-colored. And there was a great field where we all ran around like crazy with the dog. Given my mother’s presence, and that of the littler kids, I do not believe that there was much by way of pot-smoking going on.)

It remains to be seen whether Charlton will be literally going to pot, even if the rest of the universe – or at least our little piece of it – is metaphorically heading there.