[Payaso]

Over the last few decades marijuana cultivation in Northern California has brought many benefits to the local inhabitants. From gourmet organic food, to improved local government services, these are a direct result of the cannabis industry pumping millions into local economies.

Marijuana was by no means the first boom crop to delight my home county of Humboldt, here in northern California, five hours' drive from San Francisco up Route 101. Leaving aside the boom of appropriating land from the Indians, there was the timber boom, which crested in the 1950s when Douglas fir in the Mattole Valley went south to frame the housing tracts of Los Angeles.

In the early 1970s, new settlers - fugitives from the 1960s and city life - would tell visiting friends, "Bring marijuana," and then disconsolately try to get high from the male leaves. Growers here would spend nine months coaxing their plants, only to watch, amid the mists and rains of fall, hated mold destroy the flowers.

By the end of the decade the cultivators were learning how to grow. There was an enormous variety of seeds - Afghan, Thai, Burmese. The price crept up to $400 per lb, and the grateful settlers, mostly dirt poor, rushed out to buy a washing machine, a propane fridge, a used VW, a solar panel, a 12-volt battery. Even a 3lb sale was a relatively big deal.

There was a side benefit, in the form of decent organic vegetables. The back-to-the-land folk of 1974-79 were learning to grow vegetables as well as marijuana. Just as the early pot was puny and weak, so were the vegetables. The organic/natural food store in Eureka typically stocked baskets with five withered carrots or some sad looking turnips. A potato farmer once told me that in that era he took the ugliest, most knobbly and pitted potatoes and threw them in the 'organic' box.

But just as the pot boomed in quality, so did the vegetables. The local co-op in Arcata became a vast enterprise. The present Whole Earth emporia, with their piles of vegetables more lush thananything in Renoir, are testimony to the astounding transformation of the pot flower.

The 1980s brought further advances in productivity through the old Hispanic/Mexican technique of ensuring that female buds are not pollinated, hence the name sin semilla - without seeds. By 1981 the price for the grower was up around $1,600 per lb. The $100 bill was becoming a familiar local unit of cash transactions.

In 1982 a celebrated grow here in the Mattole Valley yielded its organiser, an Ivy League grad, a harvest of 1,000lb of processed marijuana, an amazing logistical triumph. Fifteen miles up the valley from where I write, tiny Honeydew became fabled as the marijuana capital of California, if not America.

For the full story visit this link.

Good Post Friend! & As usual, Great Read.

[K.J]

Thanks for the tip-off. Great read, if a bit alarmist. The medical market is just the tip of the iceburg. I have no doubt prices will be all over the map, just like alcohol...you can get a $20 bottle of decent Canadian whiskey, or go for a $100 bottle of the finest (or more!). We haven't seen anything yet.

[+Vibes]

alarmist... good point. strong quote at the end

How long will the small producers of gourmet marijuana last before the big companies run them off, pushing through the sort of regulatory 'standards' that are now punishing small organic farmers?

[nomaad]

I disagree with the 2 year assessment. Alarmist? Yeah, just a bit. 90% of California's ganja crop leaves the state. Until national legalization, this will not change and prices will hold somewhat stable. Also, most mainstream agri-tech companies will not touch MJ till its accepted on a federal level.

The article was very well written and I enjoyed reading it on several levels, but its conclusions are a bit much.

Thanks for all the good news, Payaso.