Bite in the air

Many of us in the Humboldt County cannabis community have had a long go of it. It’s been a journey throughout the decades for most of us. Helicopter harassment, convoys coming up the hill to bust indoors or grows, and the long list of regulatory requirements and processes that ensued after legalization that cost a fortune. Add in buyers, testing, distribution, dispensaries, branding, marketing, and getting paid an actual living wage. It’s enough to drive many people away and also towards feelings of disheartenment, dismay, and depression.

(Humboldt County Supervisor’s meeting 2019. https://youtu.be/Zin8gt8kmbg)

Though I am an extremely positive and optimistic woman, there is a bite in the air, and what I’m feeling is not the last bit of winter, but a very painful and pivotal moment within the cannabis community here in Humboldt County. March 11 of this year saw the revocation and suspension of 21 permits and on the 25th, the county will decide the fate of those remaining who have outstanding fees.

 Years ago this community bore witness to an extinction event that was seen in the closing of our main streets and stores. We watched it and saw it with our eyes. We are now experiencing this extinction at the physical and psychological level. Shocked and numb at the first go round years ago, today we feel the loss of this community’s culture on the inside of our beings and we have begun to examine the ways it has impacted our minds and bodies.

I understand that each experience is subjective, and I strongly adhere to the belief that people should speak for themselves. It is important though that those outside (and even inside) the cannabis community gain a bit of understanding of what is happening to this community. We are people who have had a job and way of life for decades, and as for most people in any career, it has become our identity. Cannabis growing in Humboldt County is a culture, and that cultural identity is an extension of our community.

Most people in this world will come to internalize and identify with their career and way of living, but if that were to end, the person still gets to go home. A main street may close, but one’s home still looks and feels the same. But what if your job is your home? As farmers, even though our town is visually looking different, we could remain calm knowing the world outside our front doors would remain the same. But with each suspension and revocation, the land cannabis farmers walk and tend is changing too, as the flats and fields lay fallow. Balloon payments, monthly mortgages, land payments, road association fees, back taxes, fire insurance, all once paid for by our crops have not ceased though the source of income has. And terminating your job as a farmer no longer means not planting. There are fees and processes attached to the ending of contracts in the form of water rights, fish and wildlife agreements, waste water discharge, etc..

(Craig speaking at Supervisor’s meeting April 2024, https://youtu.be/dTpMfxtNLoI)

Growing our way out of the heartache is no longer an option, and disillusioned are we when those same gardens built the community centers, schools, hospitals, volunteer fire departments, community hospice, main streets, the additions needed for the growing family, a neighbor’s unexpected medical challenge, etc. Decades of work and a way of life are dissected, decided, and rubber stamped by the five horsemen with an aye or nay, and that my friends is how quickly our culture and our community has succumbed. Every farmer everywhere knows this story.

There is no university forum, grant, or certification that can fix it; and the dangling of such dreams and false senses of security people outside this culture keep dishing out in hopes of saving their jobs or future careers that were created at our expense and failures is offensive.

People’s work, way of life and way of being is over. The mass exodus is upon us and these folks need support. The question is how do legacy craft cannabis farmers of Humboldt County remain positive and optimistic when they couldn’t make it? And how do the ones that did, support those that didn’t?

It’s easy to feel alone and isolated when you or the people you love are moving through difficult things and difficult times, and it takes incredible strength and stamina to hold steady and keep the course. But when we are surrounded by safe people and are willing to share our situations (past or present), oftentimes we see we are not alone. Just knowing this is often enough to get us through the moment and onto the next, until we can shift whatever it is and gain the energy to create either a new perspective or a new chapter. It’s been intense here in Humboldt County and looking back at these past years has made it clear how important the community we cultivate within us and around us is. It is also clear that we as a community need to find ways to support individuals during this inevitable transition and turning point in our history.