The clock is ticking on cannabis growers in California’s Calaveras County.
But they’re not going out without a fight.
With a June deadline looming for an outright ban that was approved in January by the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, farmers are struggling to withstand the ebb and flow of optimism, brimming with anger, confusion and uncertainty. They’re despondent, but not hopeless. Lawsuits have been filed and recall efforts are underway. They’ve tallied every board member’s missteps in the process — of which there are many, they allege.
Some growers are willing to stand their ground and fight. Some will eventually slip back into the shadows of the gray and black markets. Others have had no choice but to pull up stakes and move — they need a more secure future to provide for their families — and it’s impossible to blame them.
Those who are staying recognize they may never recoup what they’ve already invested in their farms, but they just want the opportunity to compete in California’s newly legal, recreational cannabis industry.
And it’s not just that Calaveras is banning commercial marijuana operations. It’s the way the county went about it, taking a progressive approach to permitting growers in previous years and encouraging the industry to plant roots, only to shift its stance 180 degrees at the crucial moment, after hundreds of family farms have invested millions of dollars in property, licensing and infrastructure.
“I invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure and fees and electrical permits and building permits,” says Lance, the head gardener of Redtail Farms. “The county opened their doors to me and allowed me to come forward and do all these things in a commercial environment. And then 11 months later, they say no. There’s a ban in effect and basically, you’re f—ed. Let’s take cannabis out of the picture. How do you allow any business to come invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and then a year later say, ‘Hey guys, sorry, we changed our mind.’ How?”
“There’s a way to ban cannabis fairly,” says local farmer Burch Shufeld. “So why are they not treating us fairly? We don’t think the ban has the backing of the population of Calaveras.”
Reefer Madness
While the rest of the country comes to the realization that the evils of prohibition are far greater than the evils of legalization, there will always be a certain percentage of the population that fears the unknown and reacts on emotions, rather than listening to the facts.
Among conservative communities in states that have legalized cannabis, it’s Reefer Madness all over again.
In Massachusetts, nearly 200 of the state’s 351 cities have taken action to ban retail sales of state-legal marijuana. In Oregon, almost the entire eastern side of the state has prohibited legal cannabis operations. And in Washington, bans and moratoria have hampered the industry from day one, with some of the most contentious battles playing out over cannabis producers in Yakima County and over more than a hundred allotted retail licenses in various parts of the state that have not been fulfilled.
There are two misconceptions perpetuated in almost every community that has banned commercial cannabis operations in states that have legalized cannabis.
The first is the idea that marijuana can be completely eradicated by simply implementing a ban. If that were true, the DEA would have wiped cannabis off the planet decades ago. Marijuana is already there. It’s not going anywhere.
The other misconception is about the people who want to legally grow cannabis. Even among those who grew cannabis pre-legalization, the vast majority are not criminals and outlaws — but they’re portrayed as such by politicians and fear-mongers in an attempt to discredit the entire industry. Instead, they’re no different than any other entrepreneurs: hard-working men and women with families to feed. They’re pillars of their community, passionate about the area they choose to live in. They volunteer for local organizations and events. They coach youth sports.
Calaveras County, located about 70 miles southeast of Sacramento, initially supported legalized marijuana as a means to recover from the devastating Butte Fire in 2015 that burned more than 70,000 square acres and 475 houses. According to The Mercury News, Calaveras County has collected more than $7 million in taxes from marijuana growers since 2016.
But the political tides shifted last fall when four new county board members were elected. On January 10, the newly constituted Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to ban commercial marijuana cultivation.
Commitment to the Land
Legalization opponents often point to the environmental impact of cannabis cultivation, but the majority of state-licensed growers — particularly those that have deep roots within their community — set out to be good stewards of the land.
“The land that we’re cultivating on has always been my number one priority,” says Lance, who requested his last name be omitted, due to the state of uncertainty in Calaveras County. “I was born and raised in the redwoods of Mendocino and so I’ve always had a very, very close connection to the woods and the Earth in general.”
A few years back, he developed a passion for a cultivation technique called Korean natural farming (KNF). The 3,000-year-old farming practice completely reignited his enthusiasm for growing cannabis.
Lance has always followed organic cultivation techniques, but with KNF, he’s taken the practice to another level. He produces all his own fertilizers from fruits and vegetables and from fish caught off California’s North Coast. He uses everything from pineapple to mango to kiwi to dragonfruit.
“We’re basically making a fermentation out of these and pulling all those terpenes and flavor enhancers and all the things that we love so much as human beings and we make our own fertilizer out of that product, and it’s 100% all-natural,” he says.
Beyond just the natural inputs, he takes it one step further by ensuring he uses only organically grown fruits and vegetables. While he admits there’s an education gap among consumers when it comes to all-natural cannabis, he says he’s been getting more and more calls to meet California’s strict testing regulations as growers and processors look for clean alternatives to conventional pest control methods.
And he treats his cannabis like the buffalo in Native American lore: he works hard to use every single part of the plant and eliminate waste.
The only waste he produces is his stalks, he says, adding that he reuses all his soil and organic material.
But growing cannabis for a living is not the cakewalk portrayed by many media outlets.
“With someone as small as me, who has to work 60 hours on the farm and then drive three hours to a city to go to dispensaries and do all my own marketing, it’s extremely hard for any kind of mom and pop,” Lance says. “It’s almost impossible. This farm was built without borrowing a dollar. It was just built with blood, sweat, tears and hard work.”
An overhead view of Redtail Farms – one of the many farm s that could be impacted by a ban set to go into effect in early June. Photo courtesy of Redtail Farms.
The Impact of a Ban
The human toll of criminalizing marijuana is one of the biggest reasons public sentiment has shifted in favor of cannabis in recent years. But few people among the anti-cannabis crowd are willing to consider the full impact of what it means to the economy and the businesses that have invested so much time, energy and resources into going legal.
If the ban holds, certain districts in Calaveras will “shrivel up and die” and thousands of families will be affected, Shufeld says.
“It’s by far the biggest game in town,” he says.
But during the 2016 election, when California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 64 to legalize recreational cannabis, Calaveras County residents narrowly rejected the measure, with 12,341 votes in opposition and 11,114 votes in favor.
The Calaveras County ban is set to go into effect June 7 — two days after a pair of county supervisors are up for re-election. The other three supervisors are facing recall efforts that could be decided in a future election.
Until then, cultivators with temporary state licenses will continue to grow and continue to fight.
Redtail Farms produces all its own fertilizers with a variety of organically grown fruits and vegetables.
“We’re very optimistic, but at the same time, it’s kind of like you’re throwing the dice out there,” Lance says. “We’re very optimistic even if the ban stays in place that we get new board members and they will vote to turn it around.”
But at that point, the damage might already be done, Lance says.
“What scares me the most is if this ban does stay and we lose that six months of traction, it could be detrimental,” he says. “It could be very difficult when the club says, ‘Sorry Lance, I had to sign a contract with another farm so I can make sure that I had enough product on the shelf.’”
And what will the human toll look like if, in the worst-case scenario, advocates are unable to sway the current board of supervisors or the next group of politicians refuse to take action?
“I don’t know,” Lance says. “My property value crashes. I’ve lost my entire savings and I’m forced to find a job and put food on my table. It’s not only my source of income, but my family’s source of income. I’ve been able to carve out a niche in the legal marketplace and I’ve been able to pass all the very intense, strict California regulations put into place to be licensed.”
The impact stretches well beyond the cannabis industry. With hundreds of cannabis growers and thousands of total employees shut out from the legal industry, a ban would likely have a trickle-down impact on other businesses throughout the region, including grocery stores and hardware stores that rely so much on the support of local residents.
Shufeld has been in a “defensive crouch” for months, trying to be prepared for both the eventuality that the ban becomes permanent and that it’s lifted, allowing him to ramp up his efforts again.
When asked what his future holds if the ban cannot be overturned, Shufeld pauses and thinks.
“It’s not good,” he says. “We’re not going to be homeless, but we’re not the contributors to the economy that we want to be and we’re not living the same quality of life.”