I encourage people who plan on buying Christmas crap to buy as much local products as they can this holiday season. I am already guilty of buying some stuff made in foreign lands, but I am trying to buy local wines, and use local stores to do my purchasing in. Localization is the way!
What I find both comforting and aggravating is that so much of the local economy is underground. It is good the community has the money coming in, but if those profiting off this underground economy do not try to keep their earnings local, the community is supporting them, but they are not giving back. For those of you who are not sure about what I am talking about, this area of California grows a huge amount of marijuana and it is definitely the largest economy in the area. Logging and wine are the two largest legal economies and marijuana production is way ahead of them in terms of money made.
My sister is trying to figure out ways to encourage and entice the marijuana producers to donate more money to the community. She works for Healthy Kids Mendocino, an organization trying to provide health insurance for all the children in Mendocino County. If more marijuana producers donated money we might be able to achieve this goal.
Shankar Wolfananda 