Pot Farmers in The Emerald Triangle Are Having A Change of Heart

In a historic change that reverses years of either going against or paying no mind to the efforts on ending cannabis prohibition, marijuana farmers in California’s infamous Emerald Triangle have begun preparing for marijuana to be legalized statewide for recreational purposes in 2016.

In the past, cannabis cultivators inside the Emerald Triangle a swath of North California that includes Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties, which have resisted or refrained from legalization attempts, mostly for economic purposes. Wholesale marijuana prices have been dropping for years, damaging a local economy that is closely linked to the multi-billion dollar underground business. Currently, the conventional knowledge among the Triangle’s cultivators has been that legalization would push prices even lower and wreck their business.

Though cannabis has been legal for medical use in California since 1996, marijuana remains illegal on a federal level. A younger generation in the Triangle, involving many growers who took over farms that belonged to their parents, wants to end operating on the black market. “A lot of farmers who are in their 30s are outspoken now,” Amanda Reiman, manager of marijuana law and policy at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), stated to VICE News. “They have memories of being chased by choppers growing up and have a lot of trauma. Nothing is worse than what [they’ve] experienced during prohibition, and legalization is an opportunity to change that. It’s a scary leap, but [they’re] now going to have to take it.”

With Four states Washington, Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Alaska along with D.C. have all legalized recreational marijuana and the drug has gone on to gain widespread acceptance in America society. Marijuana cultivators in the Emerald Triangle have seen the writing on the wall.

“We have come off the mountain, we have come out of the closet,” Luke Bruner, co-founder of the California Cannabis Voice Humboldt (CCVH) said to VICE News. “We were hiding because of the unjust discrimination. But now we want a voice at the table.”