cineSOURCE magazine

Finally, cineSOURCE’s Weed Report
by Doniphan Blair

A 30-year-old farm manager inspects one of her greenhouses in Mendocino County, California, circa 2011. photo: D. Blair

HOW MUCH WEED CAN AMERICAN'S
smoke? Will marijuana legalization, which now includes medical in 22 states and recreational in eleven—Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington—plus the District of Columbia, soon go federal? Will taxing weed bring significant revenue, or will it cripple the legal industry? Will big tobacco, big pharma or some other big—like breweries—eventually take over?

And, perhaps most importantly in a capitalist society: Are growers over-producing? In fact, this query was of such concern last spring that big, back-east media outlets started parachuting in journalists.

“California marijuana growers could produce so much weed that they crash the market,” worried the Newsweek reporter (3/20/19). “California has a massive oversupply of illicit marijuana,” fretted The NY Times (4/27/19).

To be sure, these issues are also of intense interest in the trim rooms of California’s marijuana farms and the rustic cabins and plush penthouses where alternative agriculturalists and their marketing managers—AKA dealers—meet.

Given that the answers will effect millions of consumers nation-wide and tens of thousands of weed workers in-state, many of whom are essentially overgrown adolescents with few other, equally-lucrative opportunities, cineSOURCE decided it was time to dispatch a reporter—yours truly, given my fifty years experience in the weed space.

And so it was, in late October, with a fall twang in the air and a cineSOURCE credit card in my pocket, I bombed out to the mountains to check in with a few master growers, to review some top product, to cruise a trim room or two, and to attempt to assess California's sometimes confusing “green rush."

Although California, Holland and Paraguay decriminalized small amounts of marijuana in 1975, the late-1970s and 1988, respectively, California was the first state in the world to legalize it, in November, 1996, albeit only for medical, to heal doctor-approved ailments, and with proper paper work.

56% of Californians voted for Proposition 215, also called the Compassionate Use Act. Its principles originated with activists like Brownie Mary (Mary Jane Rathbun, 1922-1999), the San Francisco nurse who helped AIDs sufferers with their insomnia, nausea or pain by providing marijuana brownies (from a recipe by another San Franciscan, Alice B. Toklas).

Author Doniphan Blair in a garden grow in San Francisco, shortly before it was raided by the neighbors, circa 1977. photo: Nicholas Blair

Exactly two decades after medical pot passed, Proposition 64 allowing recreational use was approved in California. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, it was riddled with errors, its rollout was completely mishandled and going legal is extremely expensive.

“None of the legal market is actually working,” a top grower, who has also worked in media told me, after I plunked down in his plush easy-chair and took a toke of his potent, personal-stash “ganja” (indoor Gorilla Glue, for aficionados in the audience).

“The black market is undermining it," he said. "The people who are trying to go legit, it’s just not happening. The big guys who are trying to come in, it is not working for them, either.”

“The regulation is all over the place. Growers who are getting licensed are immediately buried in fees and regulations, but the black market prices are still where they were. The legal people can’t adjust their prices to cover their overhead, so the black market is still undermining them.”

Growers generally supported medical marijuana. Indeed, Proposition 215’s allowance of six plants for personal use, with the addition of 43 more, grown to supply patients who provided copies of their doctors' authorizations, was very workable.

Properly-tended marijuana plants yield an average of three pounds, with large ones delivering up to twice that. Hence, a skilled grower could take in over two hundred pounds per harvest, generating serious scratch, if it’s good looking and hard hitting enough to fetch high-end prices (currently $1200 to $1800 a pound for outdoor).

Indeed, Grower A, let’s call him, was involved with a television comedy series which poked fun at young marijuaneros who suddenly found themselves with fantastic amounts of disposable income.

When it came to legal recreational, however, most growers voted against it. They feared corporate conquest, exorbitant taxes and the state's seed-to-sale surveillance, called the California Cannabis Track-and-Trace (CCTT), which requires onerous bookkeeping, weighing and other micro-managing minutia. Indeed, running a squeaky-clean legal farm, brokerage or dispensary is almost absurdly difficult as well as over-the-top expensive. Some growers report paying up to $100,000 in legal and state fees to get licensed.

Since everyone wanted in on the action, California has three licensing agencies: the Bureau of Cannabis Control in the Department of Consumer Affairs, the office of Manufactured Cannabis Safety in the Department of Food and Agriculture—featuring the aforementioned CCTT—and, finally, CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing in the Department of Public Health.

Two friends dressed appropriately for Oakland's first official cannabis fair, which was held in front of City Hall, in 2011. photo: D. Blair

As if that wasn’t bureaucratic overkill enough, they instituted three sets of taxes: a cultivation tax on growers, which runs almost $150 per pound, not an insignificant amount; a 15% excise tax on vendors; and a sales tax on consumers, which the state starts at 7.5%, but to which counties and cities can add up to 2.5%.

If anything could turn hippies Republican, it would be the over-regulation and -taxation of their “tea”—especially given the origins of the United States around similar issues.

To help them walk through the legal and regulatory minefield, there’s the California Cannabis Industry Association and Oaksterdam University. Founded in Oakland in 2007 to teach horticulture, the latter also offers courses in weed law, history, equipment, pest abatement and more.

“There was a huge influx of investors and hedge fund people, all dying to jump in on the supposed new green bonanza,” Grower A continued. “I have a friend in Oakland who is a financial advisor specifically for cannabis companies and investors. She makes good money but no one she represents, or that she sees, has made ANY profit.”

In fact, in British Columbia—California’s chief international competitor, especially after Canada legalized weed federally in 2018—out of almost one hundred cannabis companies ONLY one was in the black.

“I feel like anyone who invested that much money, they're not doing it anymore,” opined Grower A. “They all realized, it would all just fail. I think it will go federal before any of these state-licensed people will become successful. Maybe a tiny percentage of them will [make money] but 99% of them won’t. The dispensaries can make money, but the legal producers can’t.”

To attract venture capital, you have to go big, which requires a certain amount of land and equipment but a lot of organization and talent. Contrary to the sobriquet weed, it’s not that easy to cultivate the super-strong “skunk,” which does smell surprisingly like the animal and currently has strains with up to 32% THC (the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol).

Back in the 1980s, good ganja averaged well under 5% THC, though there was very little testing, so it's hard to say definitively. By 2010, “kind bud” was besting 10% on occasion, but THC stats can be deceiving, since weed has multiple compounds and smoking it is a multi-factorial experience. Indeed, a few years before, some cannabis had become over-hybrid, much like tomatoes in the 1980s. It looked and smelled spectacular but when you took a puff, it didn’t bang the head.

A grower tends his massive outdoor grow, somewhere in the Emerald Triangle (Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity Counties). photo: unknown

Whatever the decade, growing great “grass” requires good seeds and soil, proper water and light, protection against rats and deer (if outdoor) and regular inspection for mites and fungus (especially indoor), as well as love and juju—at least according to the hippies.

But that’s only to grow a beautiful bush, which can reach up to 18 feet tall, a magnificent sight when festooned with unfertilized female buds, glistening with resin. It still has to be properly cured and trimmed, as well as packaged and brokered and, last but NOT least, shipped somewhere.

“There was NO distribution plan," Grower A explained. "All that pot has to be sold in California.”

Interstate transport remains highly illegal. Indeed, cops in the first weed-prohibiting state—Utah, if you’re driving east on Interstate 80—are expert at profiling drivers, tearing apart cars and garnering fine, vehicle seizure and court fees for their district.

“So if you grow 5000 pounds of weed, you can’t sell it legally. But illegally, you can get rid of it.”

As if that weren’t lack of business savvy enough, there is no such thing as a Cannabis Bank: all transactions have to be in cash.

Regular banks won't accept deposits, for fear of being indicted on federal money laundering charges, let alone provide loans, which are critical to all farmers, to help them survive to the harvest payday. To do business, growers have to lug around large wads of greenbacks, including to the various state offices to pay their medical or recreational taxes, which did bring joy to one group: the armored car consortium.

California produced “at least 13.5 million pounds of marijuana last year [2017]—five times more than the 2.5 million pounds it consumed,” according to The LA Times (10/1/17). That means about eleven million pounds were shipped nationwide, a welcome boost to the FedEx, UPS and USPS package delivery services, as well as the people building concealed compartments in vehicles.

As to the question of how much weed Americans currently smoke: If 13% of Californians blow herb, as indicated by a recent CBS study—which identified Cali as the tenth-most stoner state, ironically (the leaders are, in ascending order, Colorado, Vermont and... wait for it: Alaska!)—and about a third of them are full-blown pot heads, the above figures suggest they consume about an “eighth” (of an ounce) or two a week, with the remainder doing around an eighth every month or two.

Admittedly, estimates of consumption rates, harvest amounts and street values are inevitably fuzzy. Re the latter: rarely do officials specify whether they’re measuring wet or dry weight, wholesale or retail prices, or if they included guestimates of untraceable grows by backwoodsers or Mexican cartels. For these reasons, some sources put California’s pot output a few million pounds higher than official estimates, a notable achievement but not for its price.

A hillside grow, overlooking the Pacific, Big Sur, California. photo: D. Blair

Indeed, by harvest-time 2017, as California was being inundated by “trimmigrants”—the thousands of trimmers who flock from around the US, but also Israel, Brazil and other countries on tourist visas, to earn up to $400 a day in smoke-, music- and organic-food-driven “trimathons”— the price of weed was dropping like a rock.

I recall chatting with a young grower and old friend, Grower B, who was starting to worry. Since he liked to research ancient civilizations, aliens or both together on the internet, I asked him if he'd ever googled Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish economist who identified the market's “hidden hand.” He said no. Nevertheless, as he and his friends strategized how to survive their commodity’s collapse, they had inadvertently reinvented Smith's studies.

If there ever was a free market, it’s drugs, given both producers and consumers will break many laws, but never that of supply and demand.

By late-fall 2017, high-quality outdoor, which formerly fetched $1300 a pound or more, was down to $800 or less, with inferior “herb” earning as little as $500. Legalization had become an absolute fiasco, especially for old-time growers who could remember when a pound of “primo” garnered $4000 ($9,500 in today’s dollars, due to the "cumulative" 138% inflation from 1985).

Not surprisingly, the great price drop of ’17 was somewhat in various weed workers’ minds, which were addled by fears of change, expectations of a bumper crop, working sixteen-hour-days and smoking their own “dank,” although panic is a very real force when it comes to markets. In reality, the problem derived from a combination of very real but hard-to-discern factors.

The growers had maxed out their acreage, to make bank before the arrival of big corporations and/or the surveillance state. Meanwhile, brokers from the big cities or back east, well aware of the increased harvest and new freedoms of recreational weed, shopped around or held off buying until they had extracted steep discounts. This triggered a chain reaction typical to markets with imperfect information—indeed, rife with rumors.

In point of fact, it was a local bubble. There was little market saturation, when amortized over an entire year. Moreover, California had just emerged from its worst drought since 1895 (fall 2011-fall 2015).

When I went out to the hills in the spring of 2018, there was precious little of the previous year’s crop available on the cheap. By the 2018 harvest, the black market had largely recovered, although it was then the turn of legal weed to suffer.

The semi-covered fields of Raw Gardens, a local firm that got large, in the hills of Santa Barbara. photo: courtesy Raw Gardens

In 2018, the second year of legal recreational, as legal growers moved from temporary to regular licenses, Cali cannabis officials predicted they would take in $1 billion in taxes. They got only half that. Instead of production increasing as expected, there was only $2.5 billion worth of legal weed, down a half a billion from 2017.

If California diary, which grosses only $4.5 billion annual, had a similar shortfall of 16.5%, the legislature would be flooded with lobbyists, the nightly news with worried farmers, and we’d be seeing “Got Milk” billboards everywhere again, instead of all those advertising weed home delivery.

Although this catastrophe was largely written off, either to growers being too stoned to go legal or officials being too straight to comprehend an alternative business, what actually happened was much more interesting.

Some legal growers got head hunted to build and manage massive grows from LA to Sacramento and Oakland, which seemed like a smart career move, until those businesses went belly up. Others, after enduring a year of Track-and-Trace and high taxes, went back to being outlaws.

Meanwhile, some “legacy” growers, as illegals are sometimes called, concluded the hippie homesteader dream of earning a decent living, while living off the land, was over. They saw a collision coming with industrially-grown, agency-branded and certified-legal weed, or with the state, which would surely soon start enforcing CCTT and the cultivation tax—and we all know what finally got the Prohibition-era bootlegger Al Capone.

It is estimated that over the two-year transition period the black market harvest dipped annually by at least a billion dollars, 5 to 7% of its value (depending on estimates), although that did serve to shore up prices, which obviously enticed some legal growers to simply sell their product illegally.

One spectacular error of Prop 64 was that, while it limited legal grows to one acre per license, there was no limit on the number of licenses, leading to “stacking,” big businesses getting multiple licenses. Nevertheless, as noted, most carpetbagger cannabis capitalists went bust.

On the other hand, local growers who secured private financing and grew their businesses organically, so to speak, often did OK. Two of the largest farms in Humboldt and Santa Barbara counties are Honeydew Farms and Raw Gardens, respectively. The former, located on 600 acres in the gorgeous Mattole Valley, was Humboldt's first legal cannabis farm. The latter, known for their “live resin sauce," took home the top prize at the 2019 Bay Area Cannabis Cup.

In general, however, the effort to entice California's growers to go straight flopped. Statewide, slightly less than 3,000 recreational cultivation licenses were issued in 2018, about 60% for indoor facilities. In Nevada County, a major grow zone in the temperate foothills of the Sierras, there were only about twenty certified farms by the fall of 2019, a drop in the bucket compared to the county’s thousands of grows. In Mendocino, over 95% of grows are illegal.

A urinal at Oakland's famous Harborside dispensary, with the specials of the day. photo: D. Blair

Fortunately for growers, harvest shortfalls pushed up prices. Indeed, a top-drawer eighth at Oakland dispensaries has inched up over the last few years from $50 to $60, although once you add 33.33% in state, county and city taxes (plus or minus 1%, due to details it would be impossible to explain in less than a paragraph), that’s a rise from $66 to a whopping $80—for ten average-sized joints!

Admittedly, Oakland's taxes are the highest in California and near the top nation-wide, with only Washington State charging more. But that’s a bit odd, given Oakland is at the center of Cali’s weed business, both as a brokering and indoor-grow hub, and as home to both Harborside, the large, flagship dispensary, and Oaksterdam University.

Back in 2012, Oakland officials were so proud of their weed leadership, they put on the ballot a proposal to open their own municipal indoor grows, to supply Oaklanders with both weed and its taxes. It was rejected—that’s almost a gross as getting drugs through your parents. A year earlier, the city held its first cannabis fair, right in front of City Hall. It was a colorful affair, which combined booths with businesses attempting to appear professional with lots of strange outfits, smoking and laughing.

More recently, politicians have been talking about reducing Oakland’s weed tax, to incentivize cannibusinesses to stay in town, but no relevant votes have yet been scheduled.

For those reluctant to fork over a full third of their weed budget in taxes—which are only half the 63% on tobacco but algebraically higher than beer’s 2.5 cents a pint—there are plenty of Oakland dealers offering “wheelchair weed” at up to half the dispensary rate. Nonetheless, the Blüm dispensary, a mile down the street from me, has out-the-door lines on payday Fridays, while another dispensary is about to open, a mile in the other direction.

“Taxes are not a barrier,” to California's weed market expansion,” claimed David Downs, a reporter from Leafly, a guide to all things marijuana, in an interview on San Francisco’s premier NPR radio station, KQED (12/5/19), “considering cannabis used to wholesale for $6000 a pound.” (I never heard of such extravagant earnings, but Downs may be citing the top price paid, perhaps in Hollywood, for the best "numero uno," circa 1985.)

Some dopers patronize dispensaries because they don’t know any growers or dealers; others like the variety of flowers and edibles, or the convenience; and a few are concerned about product safety. Indeed, legal cannabis is much cleaner than food, given it is tested for 62 pesticides, including heavy metals and pathogens. Black market bud is occasionally shown to have black mold, fungus and other weird stuff.

Nevertheless, an eighth of “chronic” has been holding steady at $60 since the 1980s, which means $80 is hardly progress (although it does equal $33.50 if inflation is taken into account).

In fact, it’s outright racist. It limits access to quality smoke among the Mexican- and African-American communities, marijuana's most stalwart consumer base, ever since the former sold the latter that first “nickel bag”—when it was actually five cents—in New Orleans, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, according to dopologists.

We can assume that was the price paid by trumpeter Louis Armstrong for his first stash, when he was 20 and playing with The Vipers, a term associated with users of "gage,” "maryjane," "boo" or "reefer" (early 20th century slang). Armstrong was busted in 1930, for a joint outside the Cotton Club in LA, but he only got nine days in the clink and a six-month suspended sentence, probably because the authorities were fans.

Snoop Dog, a rapper out of LA, enjoying his preferred past time. photo: Peggy Sirota courtesy Hollywood Reporter

Armstrong went on to be a life-long “viper,” even keeping in his band an inferior musician with superior connections, to whom he would send telegrams like, “Join us in Paris with lots of new scores.” (That the word for music transcriptions became their drug code is coincidental, since score entered the vernacular for “to buy drugs” from sex slang, which took it from sports.)

Some effort has been made to open up dispensary licenses and other weed work to people of color, who suffered disproportionately from the decades of draconian drug laws. Oakland reserved some sales permits for minorities convicted of weed offenses and mandated that a few pot shops be located in the ‘hood.

On the other hand, POC entrepreneurs with drug hustling experience have long been profiting from the weed business. After a generation hiatus during the crack epidemic, when many switched to that more lucrative product, “kush” has returned to popularity in their community, with some rappers hailing themselves as marijuana messiahs, most famously Snoop Dog (who is from Long Beach, California).

Although it is recommended such vendors play it cool when “driving while black” into the white hill country, the ones I met doing business there didn’t seem stressed out whatsoever. Northern California has been liberal long enough for excess fears to be more from product-induced paranoia than the racist cop-stops common in other parts of the country, including Southern California.

Meanwhile, prosecutors announced they would dismiss or diminish tens of thousands of cannabis convictions, hoping to eventually lower the number of Californians in prison for weed, the majority of whom are POC, from a high of 100,000 to approximately 5,000. Although not as many Californians as expected went through the effort to clear weed convictions from their records, an allowance stipulated by Proposition 64, some have, restoring their right to vote and hold professional licenses.

Putting aside for a moment the tragedy of arrests and lives ruined by a substance commonly-acknowledged to be less dangerous than drink, the history of America's marijuana business is a colorful confluence of hedonist, multicultural and market forces.

After the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which outlawed reefer federally, Mexican-Americans and Texans did most of the importing, white under-worlders the wholesaling and black hustlers the retailing. Indeed, that cross-cultural collaboration was still in effect when this reporter began his research at age 15, although white hippies had taken over their community’s last mile.

What I first smoked back in 1969 was mostly foul-tasting, brick-pressed Mexican. By the early ‘70s, however, my cohort was enjoying high-quality “cheeva” from Jamaica, Acapulco Gold or Michoacan Green from Mexico and, on the rare occasion, Panama Red. Around mid-decade, the high-end herb market was conquered by Colombian Gold and, a few years later, by Thai Stick. Packaged by wrapping a few buds around a proverbial stick, it was first imported by Vietnam vets.

Steve DeAngelo, the founder and executive director of Oakland’s famous Harborside dispensary, tending one of its deluxe check out counters, circa 2010. photo: Eric Wolfe

Alas, that well-established weed economy ended around 1980 when into marketplace strode the Goliath that still dominates it today: California. As every woods hippie or cool grandma with a garden got their grow on, the state was soon surfeit with “sensimilla” (Spanish for "without seeds"). Although some of it was not quite as punchy as the epicurean Thai Stick, at least you didn’t have to pay for the stick's weight or ship it across eight thousand miles of ocean.

California’s “tea heads,” as William Burroughs disparaged them (“Junky”, 1953)—he also tried growing weed in Texas around 1950, but hated how tea heads would hang around his pad for hours smoking his stash—are amazingly diverse.

There’s nothing as anthropologically eye-opening as a visit to California’s, and probably the world’s, largest legal cannabis dispensary, Oakland’s Harborside. Started in 2006 by herb activist Steve DeAngelo, it developed a national reputation after appearing in "Weed Wars" (Discovery Channel documentary, 2011).

Harborside epitomizes Cali cannabis retail aesthetic with its muted colors, its up to twelve check-out counters, its extensive edible displays and its eclectic clientele: from black and white kids and older hipsters to much older, even elderly black, white and Latino folk. Only the Asians are noticeably absent, although a few youngsters are trying to make up for that.

Harborside has serious security, with a number of cameras and two guards: one on the sidewalk in front of the door, who scans your driver’s license, both to make sure you’re 18 and to get a record of it. Then they walkie-talkie admittance approval to the guard just inside the front door. They’ve had very few problems over the years, according to the workers I talked to, except for the occasional smash and grab. But, since every driver’s license is recorded, those offenders are soon arrested—by the regular police!

Harborside has had other troubles, however. In 2018, it lost a two-and-a-half year court battle initiated by CEO Andrew Berman who objected to Section 280E of the California tax code, which restricts cannabis companies from deducting business expenses. This can push tax burdens up to 70% of gross.

"We feel this is a setback for the entire cannabis industry, which is simply seeking the same tax treatment by the IRS that every other industry is subjected to,” Berman said in December, 2018 (see article). Indeed, Harborside’s accumulated liability could reach $20 million and bankrupt the company, which was once a non-profit and also offers yoga and health services.

Despite this, Harborside doubled its revenue since 2012. Moreover, in 2018, its management company, FLRish, reported it was selling part-ownership to Lineage Grow for about $200 million, not bad, given the latter's listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

Through it all, it's anyone’s guess whether Harborside or other dispensaries are selling squeaky-clean legal weed. Indeed, it would be hard to believe there's absolutely no black market green in there.

Asian-Americans are traditionally not big pot heads, but this young graphic designer, who stopped for a toke outside City Lights, the beatnik bookstore next to Chinatown, has long been a head. Photo: D. Blair

Although Cali instituted Track-and-Trace in January, 2019, where every seed is tagged and monitored by Metric, a private company, it still isn’t fully operational. Thankfully, the authorities were either caught completely unawares by legalization’s complexity or decided not to bring the hammer down.

In point of fact, how could rigorous enforcement possibly work? Cali's weed economy has been on an unstoppable expansion track since the early-‘80s, when Ronald Reagan's Republican Revolution and Nancy Reagan's “Just Say No” campaign did little to reduce output or consumption.

CAMP, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, established in 1983, remains a multi-agency task force run by California’s Department of Justice (once headed by ex-presidential candidate Kamala Harris). Alas, it is as ineffective today as it was 35 years ago.

For its first few years, CAMP flew helicopters all over Big Sur, Nevada County and the Emerald Triangle (Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties, which claim to grow 70% of American weed—doubtful now that Santa Barbara County has a majority of Cali’s legal licenses). During that time, CAMP risked aircraft and personnel to lower agents into steep ravines, to chase hippies through fields of poison oak and to uproot and burn thousands of plants, leading to dozens of downwind jokes.

But the backyard garden grows, which flourished until the early ‘80s, were shifted to under the trees a few miles hike into the state or national forests, which made them almost impossible to see from the air. CAMP commanders eventually realized their efforts were expensive, ineffective or even absurd, given they were getting only a few percent of the total crop for tens of millions in costs.

Moreover, unless they arrested someone with over a dozen pounds in a completely-clean bust, almost no one went to jail, due to the cottage industry of dope defense lawyers. Not to mention some cops were selling it, while rural residents, no matter how redneck, were overjoyed with a new business to replace the lost timber, fishing and mining industries. Indeed, they generally voted out egregiously aggressive sheriffs

CAMP is still at it. So far “this year [it] seized nearly 1 million pot plants from illicit grows, a jump from last year highlighting that the black market remains a persistent problem,” according to a recent LA Times article (11/4/19).

Alas, “345 raids of illegal grow sites throughout California and the eradication of 953,459 marijuana plants, up from 254 raids last year that seized 614,267 pot plants, [according to] state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra,” is not much considering at least 10 million starts or plants are grown annually.

A trimmigrant from Italy, back for her third season, checks out some monster plants in the Sierras. photo: unknown

CAMP’s seizure of 168 weapons thus far this year, up from 100 in 2018, does suggest a certain hoodlum element, although it’s comparatively pretty small. Indeed, most growers don’t pack. They police their own through trusted business partners, community intel and kitchen-sink cryptography: “How many CDs do you need?” “Five, two Beatles and three Stones.”

Of course, herbologists now have at their finger tips state-of-the-art cryptography like Signal, an app easily downloadable to their mobile phones. Although Signal’s dependence on actual phone numbers may prove its Achilles’ Heel, it provides fully encrypted communication, despite the fact that some superstitious growers still use their traditional codes.

Meanwhile, rumors of Mexican cartel infiltration, which were rampant some years back, have only panned out in commando grows in the national forests of Southern California.

To be sure, there have been a number of tragic murders, like of a Mendocino grower named Garrett Rodriguez, who was dug out of a shallow grave in 2013.

His story is well told in the moody documentary “Murder Mountain” (2017), from Netflix and directed by Joshua Zeman, who avoids the drug art tendency to indulge hipsterisms. The characters of “Murder Mountain” are a world apart from the bourgeoisie growers of “Weeds”, the award-winning TV series (Showtime, 2005-2012). Although set in San Diego, “Weeds” did highlight the cartel threat from across the border.

Humboldt County did have a record kill count in 2016—a whopping 21—over double its average of eight per year from 1986 to 2013. As severe as that might sound, it is significantly less per capita than cineSOURCE’s neighborhood of West Oakland.

Of course, those outside the law, with no recourse to courts, sometimes resort to arms, not to mention that Humboldt is an out-of-the-way place popular with drifters and runaways, as well as back-to-the-land hippies. Nevada County, meanwhile, with its many picturesque towns, has averaged only two homicides per year for decades.

Despite the ass-whupping endured by capitalist cannabiseros, the Bay Area has been inundated by dope delivery services, the herb of which is also probably not entirely seed-to-sale legit. Indeed, Grower A has a friend in San Jose with a delivery service; they tried for years to go legal but could never quite swing the ridiculous paperwork and costs.

Nevertheless, companies like Eaze or Chill are renting billboards all over the Bay, some of which run up to $40,000 a month. Having studied the market, they appear to be endorsing the American business model of services over manufacturing. Indeed, there are almost a dozen outfits duking it out for the high-end nerd, couch-potato or ridiculously-rich cannabis consumer.

One of hundreds of billboards currently up across the Bay Area, as over a dozen companies compete for the lucrative weed delivery market. photo: D. Blair

Considering there are almost 100 dispensaries in the greater Bay Area AND it is one of the biggest weed transshipment areas in the world, the fact that there is a million-dollar, public battle for delivery dominance is telling.

As if those 100 dispensaries and dozen delivery services were not enough: “A bill moving through the legislature would require those cities to permit at least one cannabis retailer for every four bars or restaurants with a liquor license or one for every 10,000 residents, whichever is fewer,” according to The LA Times (5/13/19). If it passes, that will mean: “2,200 new cannabis stores throughout the state, more than three times the 631 shops legally operating now!”

Admittedly, 631 dispensaries is low, since Colorado, with an eighth the population, has 540. As it happened, a lot of Californian cities voted against allowing dispensaries, and less then half its counties have legalized weed, making the “inland empire,” which grows over half of America’s food, a weed desert.

Meanwhile Los Angeles, after being flooded with medical vendors in the early-00s, trimmed them back so severely the city has only 180 dispensaries for four million people. Estimates suggest it could support ten times that.

So how much marijuana can Americans consume? Although the peak is not in sight, the mountain of red tape is.

Now that red state Oklahoma has gone legal recreational, some Cali growers have relocated or are planning to do so, due to that typical Republican tendency to streamline paper work. Alas, the shorter growing season and flash frosts of Oklahoma will hardly be conducive to outdoor grows, while indoor growers won’t be big fans of the tornadoes, not to mention the longer drive to Burning Man.

The Colorado weed business, which was the first to go legal recreational (in 2012, along with Washington State), giving it five years on Cali, has been getting a lot of press of late. The hit cartoon series, “South Park”, which is set there, has been highlighting it, between taking on repression in China or Trump’s America. Although Coloradans have created some great branding and edibles, grown in the cold at 5,000 feet, their weed is not quite as robust and headbanger as that from tropical Cali.

As you might imagine, I had a fabulous, fun few-day tour of some of Cali's prime weed country. Although I uncovered quite a few problems, the rocky transition seems to have stabilized. After visiting a few farms and toking some great ganja—notably Poison Mimosa, the great-granddaughter of the Durban Poison I had in Crete, Greece, in 1972, and was the best I ever smoked in my life—I can testify: the 2019 season has produced a bumper crop of excellent green.

The Oakland Museum's show 'Altered States', in 2016, featured actual marijuana, its history and its enormous influence in California. photo: D. Blair

“California is on track to post a record $3.1 billion in licensed cannabis sales this year,” according to The LA Times (8/15/19), “solidifying its status as the largest legal marijuana market in the world… But California’s black market for marijuana continues to flourish as high taxes and a refusal by most cities to allow licensed shops makes it cheaper and easier for people to buy from illicit dealers... An estimated $8.7 billion is expected to be spent in the illegal [California] cannabis market in 2019.”

Although this year’s harvest of $11.9 billion is still 12% lower than 2017’s $13.5 billion estimate, it may actually be almost back to, or even beating, the unofficial estimate of $18 billion a year in 2016. Moreover, au contraire the sky-is-falling analysis of Newsweek and The NY Times, I found no glut. It all sells, almost as fast as it can be grown, cured, trimmed and bagged—85% out of state.

There is also a huge market for CBD, which stands for Cannabidiol, one of 113 cannabinoids in weed. First identified in 1940, it is the major medicinal ingredient and it makes up about 40% of an average plant’s extract. Some growers have started freeze-drying inferior wet weed, putting it through a “bucking machine,” which roughly replaces hand trimming, and selling it to distillers for as little as $75 a pound.

“Price of cannabis overall is falling,” according to Leafly’s David Downs, in his KQED interview. “The average eighth of an ounce is $32 to $40, before tax. The price will keep coming down. A lot of big farms are opening up, and an good ounce is on its way to $150.”

“50-dollar half ounces at the low end and 80-dollar eighths at the high end. There will be a lot of losers and some winners, but craft”—ie small growers—“is here to stay,” Downs insisted. Moreover, “demand is going up,” he added.

As far as the rollout of legal, “We just had the ‘terrible twos’," Downs claimed, "and a three year old will be more capable.”

Alas, that contradicts what my best informant, Grower A, told me. Indeed, my recent visit to Harborside indicated that $35 bucks won't go that far towards an excellent eighth. Actually prices are almost up to where they were before the collapse two years ago, according to my observations and my ad hoc survey ten growers and brokers.

Given the controlling factor in price is demand, the big question remains: “Is there any limit to the amount weed Americans can smoke?” When I asked my contacts, no one ventured a guess. Indeed, they noted new markets opening or expanding, the elderly, Trumpers, women and Asians, as well as a host of products, cookies, candy, skin cream and more infused with CBDs.

Moreover, not only many states but many countries are following California’s legalization lead. While Mexico, which is planning to go legit in 2021, won’t be importing much from its sometimes-abusive neighbor to the north (indeed, it will be scheming how to recapture its once-lucrative export business), Germany, which is also legalizing that year, might.

Sunset up on the ridge above Nevada City glances off some glistening buds. photo: unknown

But Germany has the renown weed center of Amsterdam right next door, while Cali exports there would be small beer compared to Japan and Korea, if they make the leap to legalization. The biggest bonanza would be China, although that is unlikely, as the grower from “South Park” learned when he got busted with a suitcase full of Colorado cannabis and jailed in a gulag with Uighur Muslims.

Admittedly, there are legitimate concerns about excessive consumption. Certainly, some weed taxes should be earmarked for education and remediating overuse. If one’s family has history of schizophrenia, you're well-advised to lay off until your mid-20s. Meanwhile, abstinence until 18 is a good idea, in most cases.

Of course vaping, which injects into the lungs up to ten times the normal toke, is dangerous—as the recent spate of 2000 hospitalizations and 40 deaths amply indicate. Vitamin E, while great for your skin, evidently doesn't work well with vaped THC. Nonetheless, marijuana has also been shown to help children with seizures and to ease a number of aches and pains.

Indeed, CBDs have been proven—or have shown the potential—to help a host of ailments: Alzheimer's, appetite loss, cancer, Crohn's disease, eating disorders (such as anorexia), epilepsy, glaucoma, insomnia, mental health conditions like schizophrenia and post traumatic stress disorder, multiple sclerosis, muscle spasms, nausea, pain, wasting syndrome (cachexia) and, last but not least, writer’s block—as this author can testify.

All very well and good, especially for garnering the good Samaritan vote, “But when will it go federal?” I inquired of my weed worker contacts.

“Probably not for at least five years, especially given who we have in the White House,” Grower C replied, laughing. Indeed, Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a lot of anti-weed remarks but he's gone, recreational marijuana is here to stay and the new AG William Barr appears occupied with other crimes.

Motley Fools, the stock advisor web site, predicts an 80-billion-dollar-a-year international pot market by 2030. Given that is three presidential cycles away, national legalization is entirely possible by then. But, considering California's recent problems with ending prohibition, I wouldn't be too bullish on massive monetary killings, only the slow expansion of the colossus that has been Cali cannabis since 1980.

Indeed, the take over, over-taxation or otherwise demise of the state's boutique growers is a ways off—if ever—especially if consumers remain dedicated to searching out, smoking or ingesting the highest-quality, handcrafted herb available, which is even more important if we believe in the spirits suggested in “The Secret Life of Plants” (Tompkins/Bird, 1973).

Sadly, most people don't see the value of spectacular smoke, which can cost up to 175 to 250% of average bud. Although it's pricier, you smoke less, which is better for your lungs. Almost always grown indoors, which does make a bigger carbon footprint, it has a dank, cheesy smell; it is so thick with oil, the buds stay compressed when squeezed; and it has that tell-tale smell of skunk, which derives from one of its terpenes, myrcene, also in thyme and mangoes.

Marketing material from a brand of cannabis chocolates, circa 2011, shows how much more design-oriented is the packaging today. photo: unknown

If we can educate consumers to appreciate hand-crafted herb, we will help insure the survival of Cali’s forty-year-old, immensely productive, somewhat outlaw, but rarely violent artisanal weed community. If we're willing to pay $5 a pound for heirloom tomatoes, surely we can spring $80 an eighth for some of the finest smoke to emerge from the storied, stoney and ancient history of cannabis, which was first mentioned in India around 1000 BCE.

As I bombed back from the marijuana mountains down Interstate 80, doing 80 mph, as is now standard off rush, I considered all the competing laws, economic pressures and public tastes of this almost $20 billion a year industry. "Californians are both practical and stoner enough," I concluded, "to strike a functional balance between corporate dominance, state control and your friendly neighborhood weed worker."

In this way, my grower buds, as it were, will be supplying the state, the nation and even the world with plenty of pot for the rest of my lifetime and probably well into my next.

Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached
Posted on Dec 09, 2019 - 08:41 AM