MJBOWL AWARD

​​Craig and I had a wonderful 48 hours in Vegas, where we received the MVP award for the BEST OUTDOOR FLOWER in CALIFORNIA with our Jack Herer cultivar. It was an honor to be acknowledged for this accolade, but more so it was incredible that the Budist are recognizing the people who literally grow the plant that has produced what is now called the “cannabis industry.”

Our partner Solful has been committed to sun grown cannabis farmers and the cannabis community since its inception in 2017. The founders and owners of Solful, Eli and Noah Melrod, own father is a pancreatic cancer survivor and he used cannabis as an integral part of his health and wellness journey. Seeing how it made such a positive impact in their fathers life, the Melrod sons set out to create a wellness space in the community that carried the cleanest cannabis curated by the small craft farmers of Northern California. Our MVP win at the MJBOWL AWARDS and our three GOLD and three BRONZE medals at the CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR were cultivars that came straight from the Solful shelves. This illustrates 1) the incredibly strong supply chain Solful has created and 2) how incredible the farms Solful supports are.

Having a few days to reminisce on my first ever trip to Las Vegas, I marvel in wonderment at how Humboldt County’s way of life and way of making our means has sparked an entire commercial industry that most farmers in the Emerald Triangle are no longer a part of. Growing cannabis made possible rural mountain living, where most folks live off the grid and depend on community connections to survive and thrive. During prohibition this beautiful plant was grown under the canopy of the forests; now it is under the full sun with her roots in the ground where she belongs. Though this freeing of the herb from helicopter surveillance may have liberated the plant, many people who risked everything to weed before legalization have been forgotten or left behind; all the OG activists who spent decades ensuring cannabis access to medical patients and veterans, the regulation and over-taxation allowed for millions of cannabis farmers money to fund regulatory boards and agencies to take almost everything from our community ( i.e our economy), farmers have been duped and dumped by investors, the broken supply chain often never paid what was promised, and all the individuals who are incarcerated for what we were in Vegas celebrating. Perfect example. Two individuals were arrested in Vegas just this last week and charged with felonies for having clones (baby plants) meant for their vendor booth on the MJBIZ CON convention floor.

It was easy to forget at MJBIZ CON that its entirety is based on a living green herb. This was and is why it’s so important that farmers like ourselves lovingly show up and hold space in that arena. It’s great to be recognized for decades long work and awarded for cultivating superb flower, and we are forever thankful to the Budist who celebrated farmers and arranged media so we had the opportunity to tell our story. Reminding an audience (however massive) that this plant is thousands of years old, has traveled the world is various forms, was used for decades in a regenerative way to produce everything from paper to sails, and is still grown outdoors in the sunshine under the stars and moon with nature and for nature is our responsibility. The cannabis plant itself deserves its own accolade, and a LIVING CANNABIS PLANT should be the center of any cannabis event. This one plant does so much for us individually, look what it has created outside of ourselves. I’m too close to her to not see her, my relationship with her too long. But when you are coming at her, not walking beside her, I can see how she disappears (and that is probably her own survival skill); huge trim machines, lights, salts, fans, timers, surveillance systems, papers, extractions, investors, etc…. Among the marble, crystal chandeliers, slot machines, cigarette smoke, stale and sterile white fluorescent lighted convention centers, it was like a Las Vegas magic show in real time…how to make the plant that has produced an industry disappear.

So while it’s crucial we celebrate the victories at how far this plant and the people who love her have come, it’s critical we continue the necessary and hard work at decriminalizing and normalizing this herb and the people who grow and use it. It’s also crucial that we continue to acknowledge the real winner at every single one of these events; this beautiful herb and the EARTH.

Thank you Josh and Kelly from Dragonfly Earth Medicine for freely sharing your knowledge around regenerative farming and living with the world, and for blessing us and our homestead all those years ago. Thank you Dr. Elaine Ingham, the Godmother of the Soil Food Web, for your in-person and online courses where we as stewards of the land can educate ourselves and live lightly upon this earth while also earning a living. Thank you Dan and Reka from High Tide Permaculture for all your knowledge around native plants and permaculture, the construction of our rain water systems, and for the love and laughs throughout the years. Thank you Baron and Olya from Nasha for your continuous support and sincere friendship. Thank you Ross Gordon and Natalynne Delappe of HCGA (Humboldt County Growers Alliance) for your relentless advocacy and policy work around our local cannabis communities needs. Thank you to Eli and Noah from Solful and the entire Solful team, who’s dedication to community and sun grown cannabis is taking this conversation and work to the next level. Thank you to the Budist’s MJBOWL for honoring the farmers of cannabis and for remembering what this is all about. And much love to everyone in my beloved Humboldt community who stood for this plant and way of life throughout the decades and who risked and lost it all during legalization. We have all played a small role in something much bigger than ourselves.