When the first issue of Scottsville Weekly landed on April 16, it caused an immediate stir. Seven candidates for town council were asked where they stood on a number of issues, including whether they support legalizing marijuana. As one might imagine, the remainder of the questionnaire fell on deaf ears when five out of seven answered “yes” to legalization. (One candidate and supporter of legalization, five-time councilor Jeanette Kerlin, has since dropped from the race.)
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Scottsville town councilor Bebe Williams estimates that half of the town’s population is in favor of legalizing pot—as is a majority of town council candidates. |
“It wasn’t my intention to have this be an issue of the campaign,” says publisher Bebe Williams, a one-term town councilor who ran for re-election on May 4. “But if nothing else, the people of Scottsville are reading about it and talking about it, and they’re learning a lot about their friends.”
While Williams was not the only council candidate to support the legalization of marijuana, he may have been the only candidtae adversely affected by his advocacy. Williams pulled in 47 votes—not enough to reclaim his council seat.
A new nationwide CBS News poll conducted in March found that the percentage who support legalization has jumped to 44 percent of Americans from 27 percent over the last 30 years. The poll also found that geography plays a significant role. Support for legalization is greatest in the West (55 percent), where Californians will get to vote on a November ballot initiative that would make it the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana.
However, the poll shows that Americans in the Midwest and South are the least likely groups to favor legalization.
“Charlottesville and Albemarle County are more progressive than most parts of Virginia,” counters Williams. “I can’t speak for everyone in the county, but I know here in Scottsville about half are for legalizing marijuana.”
Born in Petersburg, Virginia, Williams spent most of his life in the Washington, D.C., beltway, where he was a XERIC Award-winning comic artist, commissioned by the likes of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Playboy magazine, Intensity Skateboards and the American Baseball Association. He moved to Scottsville five years ago and has been a town councilor for two years.
Williams contends that the real reason he ran for town council was because of his support for issues of sustainability. As a member of the town’s Enhancement Oversight Committee, Williams has worked with the United States Department of Agriculture to help install a farmers’ market in Scottsville and is now in the second phase of a streetscape improvement that he hopes will result in turning all of the town’s street lamps into solar-powered fixtures.
As for Virginia changing the books on marijuana, in January the General Assembly’s House Criminal Subcommittee tabled House Bills 1134 and 1136—two bills which sought to expand Virginia’s medical marijuana law and decriminalize simple possession, making it an infraction punishable by fine. “There was no real debate on the issue,” says Williams. “It was treated by the assembly as a joke.
“In Virginia, it’s a tremendous uphill battle,” continues Williams. “Until the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] removes marijuana from the list of Schedule One narcotics, we’ll have trouble doing anything more than decriminalizing.”
Yet in a town like Scottsville, where just 378 are registered to vote, what difference can a politician like Bebe Williams hope to make?
“I’m just one person,” Williams concludes. “Bebe Williams can not make marijuana legal, no. What I can do is show other councilors that we can be in good standing with our citizens while also supporting legalization. If enough politicians in this country are in unison on this issue, then we can make some real changes.”
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