All right! It’s time for another edition of the Underground Review. As cannabis legalization rounds the home stretch and the pace quickens, some show signs of fatigue while others have gas in the tank – full throttle to the finish. A learning process for all, stepping into the light with the emerging industry comes with a new set of challenges. Faced with these challenges many are becoming well rounded and professional – educating themselves in order to compete in the modern business world. Learning social media, smart phones, web hosting, business law, marketing, and signing our life over to Google. Yet, these are the necessities of the current economic climate. We are all wondering how underground cannabis farmer’s can emerge from exile and find a new niche? Thankfully, some have lightened the burden. Organizations like the California Growers Association (CGA) and events like the Ganjier Spring Kickoff have become a beacon for those willing to learn and adapt.
It’s been awhile but we’re back with another addition of the Underground Review. Here at HU we’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. As cannabis normalization marches into the New Year, we are taking a fresh look at what legalization means, how (sometimes if) it should be implemented, and what identity and role HU will take moving forward. When we first started the Humboldt Underground we held an ideological view born out of the chaotic medical cannabis grey market of California. Our ideological hope was for bolstering the status quo of medical marijuana through legalization (which is happening to an extent).
In local headlines just last week, the day after the State of the Union address, directly above a picture of Obama waving from the podium, you guessed it: weed, cultivation ordinance tension to be specific. In the shadow of MMRSA and in the headlights of legalization, city and county governments have been tasked with facing the proverbial elephant-in-the-room and bringing the cannabis industry into the light. Currently they have until March 1, 2016 to establish local guidelines (although this date is expected to be amended). This has sent local governments into frenzy, with many opting to ban all sale and cultivation in a hasty bid for time to contemplate legal weed. In Humboldt, CCVH has given the county a head start (thumbs up) and Humboldt (including the Emerald Triangle) seems to be further along than the rest of the state (as we should be). However, this doesn’t make the process any easier.
In our current epoch the cannabis plant resides at a unique crossroad. Agriculture, nutrition, religion, resource management, medicine, art, fashion, gastronomy, academics, law, politics, athletics, and alternative lifestyles all intersect with the plant. From Miles Davis to Michael Phelps to President Obama, we all smoke weed – even Newt Gingrich said it’s the thing to do! The plant can ease sore bones, cultivate creativity, be processed into fuel, stimulate conversation, symbolize a culture, or simply make dinner more enjoyable. The vast utility of the plant is still unknown due to years of culture war – stigmatizing, scapegoating, and excluding the plants supporters. Now mainstream – TIME dedicated a special edition to cannabis legalization – consumers want to devour Northern California’s normalizing cannabis industry and culture, 
has started a conversation Humboldt must begin). This article has become a prime example of a serious divide that exists in Northern California’s cannabis farming community. In the article Mr. Dodge breaks down how legalization will leave Northern California’s cannabis farmers earning roughly $40k a year, which Mr. Dodge feels is too low. As HU pointed out, Mr. Dodge (only) accounted for a one-crop yield per year in order to come up with his $40k figure. This figure is off because technologies such as light-deprivation and supplemental-lighting allow cannabis farmers to pull off three runs (crops) a year (in most regions of California). But this wasn’t the only error in Steve’s math, as was outlined in letter after letter in the Mailbox section of the NCJ.
