Global Ganja Report

A market glut and paranoia about criminal cartels getting into the act coincide with the end of the CAMP program. Can Northern California's cannabis industry remake itself along ecological and community-rooted lines?

With the 2012 fall harvest season, Northern California's legendary cannabis-growing Emerald Triangle—centered around the counties of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity—is at a turning point. And as the old cliché goes, the Chinese character for crisis is made up of the characters for danger and opportunity.

The current juncture is ripe with both.

Applications to carry concealed weapons have spiked just about everywhere in Northern California in recent months, part of the ominous national trend. A Feb. 9 report in the Yuba-Sutter Appeal-Democrat notes the surge in those two counties which lie in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills, directly east of the Emerald Triangle. "There's been a dramatic increase in applications in the last few years," Yuba Sheriff Steve Durfor said. "I think it's reflective of uncertainty in the world and more people feeling vulnerable with increased talk of gun control restrictions." Sutter County Sheriff J. Paul Parker reported the same trend: "Five years ago, we had 650 permits. Now we're at 1,174."

For years, police forces in the Emerald Triangle and elsewhere around backcountry California have been hyping an increasing presence in the region's forests of Mexican and Russian cannabis grow ops linked to criminal mafias and cartels based abroad. Now, refreshingly, a Los Angeles Times story of Jan. 2, "Roots of pot cultivation hard to trace," takes a dispassionate look at the question. The piece opens with a slightly lurid lead about camo-clad federal agents ready "lock-and-load" in a stake-out on National Forest land in Kern County, fearing attack by Mexican cartel gunmen. But at the end, the piece basically tells us not to believe the hype:

Three medical marijuana groups have teamed up to support Mendocino County officials in their effort to fight a sweeping federal subpoena filed in October, seeking "any and all records" for the county's medical marijuana cultivation program, known as County Code 9.31. Last month, Mendocino County filed a motion in San Francisco federal court to quash the Justice Department's subpoena, and on Jan. 2 Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the Emerald Growers Association (EGA), and California NORML filed a joint amicus "friend of the court" brief in an attempt to protect the private patient records being sought. A hearing in the case is scheduled for 2 PM on Jan. 4, before federal District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco.

Employees of Waste Management, refuse collection provider for California's Nevada County, will help local law enforcment agencies keep an eye on the neighborhoods they serve, under a partnership announced last week. The crime watch program—dubbed WasteWatch—will have Waste Management drivers looking for evidence of illegal activity. "We welcome the extra eyes and ears in our neighborhoods," said Jeff Powell, an operations captain with the Nevada County Sheriff's Office, in a statement. "Waste Management drivers provide services in our community on a daily basis." (The Union, Grass Valley, Dec. 3)

The Mendocino Board of Supervisors and county counsel Thomas Parker are scheduled to meet in a closed-door session Dec. 4 to discuss a pending federal subpoena for records held by the Sheriff's now-defunct medical marijuana cultivation program, County Code 9.31—in which registrants were allowed to grow collectively up to 99 plants and were sold zip ties for $25 per plant to show they were being cultivated in compliance with state law. Medical marijuana patient advocates are urging the county not to comply with the subpoena and attempt to quash it. A brief public comment period is scheduled for 9 AM Tuesday just prior to the closed-door session.

For 28 years, the now-defunct state Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) sent teams of state, federal and local officers aboard helicopters into Northern California's remote forests to hunt down and destroy cannabis grows. But this year, Gov. Jerry Brown cut CAMP from the state budget. The program has been restructured under direct federal leadership—and the new moniker of Cannabis Eradication and Reclamation Team (CERT). The DEA and other federal agencies are now working with local law enforcement, with no involvement from the effectively shuttered state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.

In a new kind of cannabis crackdown in California's Nevada County, a special team of deputies is going door-to-door to make sure medical marijuana growers are following the law. The policy, ostensibly in response to some 200 complaints from neighbors, follows a new county ordinance. "The ordinance was designed to improve the quality of life in Nevada County," said Sgt. Guy Selleck of the Nevada County Sheriff's Department. "The complaints were basically driven from the odors of marijuana."