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Hey.
- This it? - Yep.
- Priscilla? - Priscilla.
- There's 50 of them? - Fifty.
And what's the number on this?
3,000.
Fifty.
- All right. Thank you. - I'll grab these.
I'll grab this one and come back for the rest.
Voters legalize the recreational use
- of marijuana. - History has been made here.
The overwhelming passage of California's proposition 64
means adults over 21 can now legally smoke marijuana
for recreational use.
With these scissors, I dub thee free.
Prop 64 is a collaborative effort
between bright industry minds to put protections,
restrictions, and regulations in place.
So, to anybody who has a marijuana offense
on their record going back five, ten, 50 years,
will be eligible to have their record cleared.
It's time for politicians of all stripes
to come out of the closet, in this respect,
and say what they think on marijuana.
And prop 64 does limit the real estate
a grower can own for the first five years
to only one acre,
and that's to allow local farmers get a head start
before the big guys move in.
If investor capital
comes in before the established industry
here in California gets its foothold,
then what happens to the 50,000+ farmers
across California?
I am a second generation cannabis farmer.
Grew up in a back-to-the-land hippy commune,
5,600 acres of beautiful mendocino county.
My husband and myself have a 40 acre piece of property,
and we grow 10,000 square feet of cannabis
on that property.
Just need to get this big mama.
- Oh, my gosh! - It's just.
In the 70s, where I grew up,
everybody knew what everybody else did,
but was all kinda hush-hush.
The helicopters would come over, we'd all kind of hide,
and we were very worried about getting busted.
My dad would say things like, you know,
"make sure you don't tell anybody what,
you know, dad does.
You don't want your dad to go to jail," kind of thing.
So, yeah, you have to be a rebel at heart, really,
to wanna follow through with this.
I think the main positives that have come from legalization
are that we really get to step out of the shadows,
we get to come out
as relevant pieces of this industry.
We've all been here for so long as farmers,
you know, the time is now
to, like, propel this industry forward.
We did that so good!
We met in 1981 in the ceramics lab
in missoula, Montana, at the university.
And we found we had ceramics in common and...
- Cannabis. - In common.
I bought a small farm in 2011.
That's the farm I've been living on since 1990.
It's been a great adventure getting a crew together
and grow all this beautiful cannabis.
And Joyce would come at trim season
and then she moved up and started doing some farming.
We make pain relief salve.
It's a medicine, it's a beautiful plant.
It's healing to work with the plant
because of the medicinal reasons.
All of our product is organic
and we make the salve together.
And I think, yeah, you have to be aware
that it's federally illegal.
So, when people come in to this business,
they've gotta realize: Are you willing to go to jail
and lose everything?
And so, we've been willing to do that for years,
or we wouldn't be here.
It is on my bucket list never to go to jail...
And I'm hoping that that,
You know, stays that way.
- Yeah. That'll be nice. - Yeah.
That would be nice.
This is the beginning stages of our dispensary.
It was an unused eyesore.
We purchased it and we literally had to have it gutted out.
It's been quite an ordeal.
This is the dispensary part of it,
where the patients will come in and see the product,
and they'll be greeted by a whole host of people
to help them as needed.
And here will be, like, a multipurpose room,
where I'll have my classes which is where I educate seniors
about the benefits of medical cannabis.
It's gonna work.
Just to see the roof off
and everything just coming together,
just fills my heart.
A ten-year vision is now in operation.
It's been slow, but all in divine timing.
It's all coming together the way it's supposed to.
And even the bees wanna come.
We'd like to begin by just saying thank you
for being a part of this incredible journey
of a lifetime.
- It's a labor of love. - Yes, it is.
Our dispensary will be geared to the needs of seniors.
Most seniors that I work with
are on from 15 to 26 pills a day,
and they're still not getting any better.
Cannabis can help almost every ailment
that seniors have.
There will be seniors that's coming,
seniors that's working there, and they're wisdom keepers.
That's who we are.
If somebody had said to me 12 years ago
I would be doing this work in the cannabis industry,
I would've said, "ooh, you been smoking too much.
Catholic school principal, goodie-two-shoes sue?
No way!"
When you grow up in a system
that's set up against you from the beginning,
you have to learn how to be bold and stand up for yourself.
Anybody can be an activist.
Anybody who uses their voice
and tries to elevate a cause or an issue is an activist.
And I don't also don't think you choose to be an activist,
it's kind of like, "hey, that's messed up."
So, you just start fighting for it, you are an activist,
because you've been activated and your soul has been like,
wait, enough. That can't happen, that's wrong.
I tool some cbd.
And that cbd revolutionized who I was.
Like, wait, I don't have to take valium and Xanax
for the PTSD that I have?
Wait, I can smoke a joint and have a great night's sleep?
And it just transformed
how I looked at the experience with the plant
where I was just like, wait a second,
this is actually medicine.
Love you.
I am a fourth generation
Mexican American,
lgbt and cannabis advocate and activist.
What needs to happen is that black and brown people
who've been disproportionately affected
by the war on drugs,
they don't have the bank accounts,
they don't have the rich families
or the rich friends that they can ask
to invest in the space.
So, for me, it was just, "how do I give back?"
We thank you all for joining us today.
We're here and we're not going anywhere.
And we're ensuring
that more faces that look like ours
not only have ownership,
but get that piece of the pie back
that was robbed from us.
After 23 years,
my high school sweetheart found me on the Internet.
And what was he doing?
He was farming cannabis in humboldt county.
I was just, you know, I was shocked.
And then I said, "you know, my friends in New York
would really like some of that humboldt county pot."
And I drove out to California
and I drove back with several pounds of pot.
Then I had to get it around New York City
to my friends who wanted to buy pounds.
So, I gathered up all my designer shopping bags,
And I would just sling those Tiffany bags
over my shoulders. They were filled with pot,
and I would just take them round to the people that,
you know, wanted to buy these pounds.
I, at that time,
owned two restaurants in New York City.
I'd been in the restaurant business
for 12 years.
I was tired. I was looking to make a change.
So, I decided to sell my restaurants
and come out to humboldt.
And I got here and I was saying to Jeff,
"does he grow? Does she grow?" And he goes...
"Everyone grows." I went, "oh, okay."
Everyone grew.
The whole entire community, everyone grew.
In the early 70s,
a great number of people moved up to humboldt,
they were called "back-to-the-ianders."
They wanted to farm organically, live off the land,
and just kind of escape everything that was going on.
We had the Vietnam war of the time,
so everybody just kinda flocked to communities like this.
There was a lot of back-to-the-land couples,
and people were having babies out in the woods.
I would say we were kind of free-range children.
That's what we called them.
Romping around, swimming in the pond,
climbing trees and stuff.
And that was kind of the nature of the community here.
If you don't come home,
your parents are gonna assume that you're at someone's house
and that you're not, like, in the woods, lost,
with the bears and the mountain lions.
I guess I grew up, in a way, like, being really fearless
about a lot of stuff and being really unique
and standing out in a lot of ways.
And I think that pattern has followed through.
Jeff was such a master grower.
They would come to him for advice,
like, you know, "how do I do this?"
And, "my leaves are yellow, what do I do? What do I add?"
People weren't growing like they're growing now.
They were having to hide their crops
and grow them in trees or under trees.
We tried to grow in, like, BlackBerry brambles
where no one could see it.
Helicopters would fly all around here for camp.
Campaign against marijuana planting.
Camp lasted about ten years, 15 years,
and it was to eradicate the cannabis.
They would fly over and see a crop
and take it out in helicopters, big huge bags of cannabis.
It was terrifying for a lot of people.
And of course, they had on kmud, the radio station,
they had helicopter alerts every day. Like, at 11:00.
"Helicopters are flying over seely creek."
"Helicopters are flying over salmon creek."
"Helicopters are flying at China creek."
It was pretty crazy.
Jeff was a paranoid person to begin with,
and that contributed way too much to his paranoia.
Jeff died in 2009, so I miss him so much.
I miss him every day.
After Jeff's death,
you know, you just have to keep going on.
So, one of the things that happened was
I literally inherited the farms.
And that's what led me to
my current situation with cannabis.
There are so many unknowns.
It is scary, not just for me, but for all of my colleagues.
People just don't know what's gonna happen.
You know, that great Eleanor Roosevelt quote,
"do something that scares you every day."
Well, that is the cannabis business right now.
All right.
And I'm gonna take this opportunity to let you know
that you've been listening to
all about the music this morning, and I am mumzer
and I'm happy to be joining you for your morning activities.
And I wanna ask you all a question, okay?
Actually, a couple of questions.
How are you feeling about this legalization thing?
How's it going for you and your family?
And what do you think about the end of prohibition?
Call in now and let us know your opinion.
I know you're out there.
As of right now, we 're in the safe zone.
You know, we've got this five-year window period
to get it together to start organizing.
You're gonna have to grow
the best that you can grow
and brand yourself and work in co-ops,
and then you'll survive. It's capitalism, after all.
I voted for prop 64 because I, for one thing,
thought if we got one person out of prison
whose family life was ruined for being busted
and sent to prison for marijuana, then heck.
You know?
We knew we were gonna have to keep fixing it for years,
and we will keep fixing it for years.
I think it's really gonna wipe out
this mom and pop farmers.
Because even now,
now that people are going for permits,
when I see the size of their greenhouses
and how many of them...
It scares me.
I have a lot of friends and family
that are gonna have a hard time, but you know what?
The people that have done it right,
that have gone for the legal permits,
that are doing a high-quality product,
are gonna find that as this legal market comes in
and dispensaries have to buy it from a legal permitted farm,
they're gonna do quite well over the next few years.
Big business
is barking all around our heels right now.
And they're more skilled and they've got more money,
and if we're not careful,
we're actually gonna lose control
of the marijuana industry. It's gonna be taken over
by people who don't, in fact, share our values,
and maybe could care less if we saved the environment
and employ people at livable wages.
When people came to the table to write prop 64,
they didn't invite any compassion programs.
It was all the big-business people.
And prop 215 was written as a compassionate care act
to allow cannabis to be put into the hands
of people who really needed it as medicine.
So, as exciting as January 1st is
and this new explosion into a brand new market,
we have to be cognizant that we don't lose the history
of why we're even able to do this.
I grew up in a home that was conservative Christian.
I knew I was queer when I was really young
and I just needed to get away
to the most liberal place I could find.
Where was I going to finally be able to be me?
Everybody knows
That San Francisco is one of the queer havens
in the world.
So, for me, it was just easy. It was one of those,
wait, oh my gosh!
Look at that couple holding hands!
And just, like, being like, oh, I can't wait
to have a girl that I could hold her hand.
People forget 1995,
the leading cause of death
for men between 22 and 44 was aids.
This was the gay plague.
It was literally called "the gay plague."
Cannabis helped them with the nausea
that they were having.
It helped them with some of the wasting syndromes
that they were going through.
Cannabis afforded many people
the ability to just be able to eat.
This was a death sentence.
I always tell people this was a rite of passage for me.
The first time that I transported a bag of weed
from point a to point b in the bay area,
my friend was HIV positive.
These were my brothers.
Like, what do you do for your brother?
You help them.
There were a bunch of women
who stepped into roles as mothers and sisters
and platonic wives,
to just be able to help our siblings during this crises.
The lgbtq community was instrumental
in opening up this dialogue about cannabis as medicine.
And that continued with people like Dennis peron,
Scott imler,
and brownie Mary,
who made sure that compassionate cannabis
was a component through prop 215,
which afforded a patient to be able to grow,
consume, possess cannabis.
He's real excited.
And so, he's gonna be doing the food?
Hm-mmm.
How many people are coming to the wedding?
- One fifty. - About 150?
Hm-mmm.
Wait, more than that.
Well, because I think I had to go to 120 on my side.
Wait a minute. You didn't tell me that.
'Cause that's not including, you know, staff and all that.
That's gonna take some coordinating.
My son, kwamin, when he told us that he was gay,
it didn't equate
what I had been told about people being gay!
He didn't match!
This is somebody I knew that didn't fit what I was told.
- Hello. - Good to see you as well.
- Hey, babe. - Hey, babe!
How was work?
It was because of you being gay
that changed me.
It was him telling us that
that really started me to evolve into a real person
and started questioning how I saw life.
What else have I been lied to about?
- You know? - Hm-mmm.
The cannabis stuff, I say, well, shit.
Maybe they lied to me about that, you know?
And so it just kinda opened my mind
into a broader perspective.
And look at the gift I get. I get another son.
I thought my party days were over until you showed up.
Oh, no way!
Jamie and I met on greenfield ranch,
where we both lived.
His dad owns property just below our property
and my father has land out in the center of the ranch.
Kinda have a similar history.
Ireahylove working with plants.
You know, I'm pretty quiet, generally.
And so I was really into botany and marine biology
and was working two jobs
and growing a little bit of cannabis
and just started doing this more and more,
and I really enjoyed the breeding aspect of it.
Like, picking a couple different plants
with different attributes
and figuring out what I thought might make a good combination,
and it kinda blossomed from there.
It's a little easier to manage small plants,
but it's kinda fun to see when they get really big
and, you know, you're proud.
Gardening was always a huge part of my life.
Through the winter, I'd get really antsy.
I just need to, like, put my hands in the dirt.
And then once I did that a couple times,
in springtime I felt normal again.
I'm mom of two boys. One's 16 and one's almost ten.
True is my sweet boy. He's an animal lover, huh?
A hyena is your favorite animal?
- Yeah. - First I've heard of that.
All right.
We're not getting one of those, by the way.
Our farm is named river txai,
which is our older son's two middle names.
He goes by river
and he's proud that the farm's named after him.
And then, you know, we have some true kush crosses,
the true berrymore,
and he's kinda excited
that his name was all over things.
They're so used to it and they kinda forget sometimes
when they're talking to their friends or at school.
It used to be more of a challenge.
We all have stories where, like,
the teacher literally pulls a bud off the kids' sweater
and just puts it in the garbage
because they know what the kids' home life is like,
and they're not gonna cause a problem.
It's been a little bit of a challenge
with the cannabis world with our teenage son
in that he's really interested in cannabis.
It's been a challenge trying to educate him
and, you know, not be hypocrites ourselves.
Did you eat?
Uh-uh.
I want him to have a different life.
I really don't want him to just go from high school,
being a teenager, right into cultivating cannabis.
Come, sit, sit, sit. Sit. Sit. Sit, sit.
So, I have something here I need to interrupt,
- because this is... - Okay, interrupt.
Stop. Just stop.
This is like
- a historical moment... - We're gonna listen.
For the bud sisters.
"Dear sir/ma'am,
we have received approval of your application
for a humboldt county business license."
"You may receive your license by remitting $12 for the year.
Please send payable
to the humboldt county tax collector.
An envelope has been provided for you..."
- Excellent. - "...For your convenience."
How many years have we been trying to get a business license
for the bud sisters?
- Four? - Foun
this is the second... yeah.
We made a mistake and put on the application
that we had cannabis in our product.
- We... - We're being honest.
No, we lied and said it had cannabis,
so now we're gonna tell the truth
and say it doesn't have cannabis,
it's just made out of hemp.
So now we can get a business license
for our salve.
Oh, we'll probably have to, you know,
- be on our taxes a little more. - Put out more money.
We're gonna have
to pay taxes now.
Better bookkeeping.
- Oh, darn! Let's burn it. - Oh, god.
Welcome to the 2017 golden tarp awards.
And we're here with the bud sisters,
Pearl and Dr. Joyce. Tell us a little about yourself.
Right, I make all the awards for the golden tarp.
What's your favorite part of today?
Oh, judging, of course.
We don't even have our booth today
because we just wanted to be judges.
This isn't mainstream cannabis,
this is artisanal, exquisite cannabis
produced by people who really care.
What we're trying to do is show you
that these type of production methodologies
and this knowledge base and these people
have been existing for 40 years here.
The fear right now
is that we're all gonna get swept away,
all of us craft producers.
And the reality of it is is that that's very possible.
But if you try to be relevant
by highlighting what we do different,
and how we do it differently,
and make it accessible to the population that purchases,
then pretty soon, they have knowledge and choice
and that gives us a chance to exist and survive.
And so that's really the mission of it.
I've known Pearl and Dr. Joyce for nine years now.
Pearl is just really a symbol of what humboldt county was.
She is the small farmer. She is the homesteader.
She is the person
who helped so many other people understand cannabis cultivation,
and many people who are successful here now
were trimmers for her when they were younger.
And Joyce is a brilliant educator.
She's able to take and use that ability to help
a tremendous number of people out using art.
They're a spiritual thread, cultural thread,
but then a thread that weaves it together
and that's what makes humboldt, humboldt,
is people like this.
We are live at the golden tarp awards,
first annual live broadcast.
And we're actually gonna head right back over
to the judge's couch. So, how's it going?
What's happening over at the couch?
Very interesting.
Very beautiful bud. What do you guys think?
Kinda more in the head kinda high...
How can you tell?
You've smoked, like, ten joints already.
Well, you know, being a judge
in the emerald cup for so many years,
you really have to learn.
And a lot of it, you know, if you don't like how it smells,
looks or tastes,
you don't even bother smoking it.
And a lot of times you light it up...
Judging 101 from sisters right here.
And you know right away.
You light that up, no, that's not it.
The ganjier award was something that we created
basically as a tribute
to somebody who was unrecognized,
but absolutely deserving.
And for this award year, I wanted to thank someone
who had been a foundation in our community.
The people that settled here in the late 60s, early 70s,
they were tough and had a full pair of balls,
which is what you needed to live here.
The person I think that epitomizes that most,
and she's about to get her mind blown,
is Pearl moon.
Wow! I'm totally blown out
and I'm really high...
'Cause I smoked some really good weed today.
Yeah!
Yes, and right now, you're gonna find out whose.
Pearl moon!
All right. Well, greetings.
Greetings out there,
humboldt, mendocino, and Trinity counties.
All right, this is sunshine hee
bringing you
the Sunday afternoon cannabis talk show
here on the mud.
Well, things are going on
on the political and legal fronts for cannabis,
and we 're gonna be doing an analysis,
looking at the next two...
Now, with legalization,
I hope to open a dispensary that's really gonna support
the small growers of this community.
When we found this building, we said, "oh my gosh,
this is right in garberville, it's properly zoned."
And the minute I walked into this front room
I said, "this is an unbelievable location
for a dispensary."
The primary manufacturing space is here,
and that's the overhead doors in the back.
We'll go take a look in a minute and take a look at that.
If the state allows us to go for that licensing,
we can do the further refining and the lab work here
and then have this for packaging and some admin.
Karyn's going through four different permits right now
with the county
for everything from cultivation to manufacturing
to distribution and dispensaries.
I think Karyn's plan to bring a revitalization project
to garberville on that scale is great.
You know, a dispensary and manufacturing facility
that provides year-round jobs
is a fabulous addition to that area.
As we move into this new transition
of legalization,
it's very difficult for the ogs,
or the original growers, to make this transition.
Now, just so you know,
I put in the application for the dispensary license
that will allow us to be a tourist-driven dispensary
that celebrates the culture and heritage
of the small family famer that goes back 40 years.
And I'm really hoping for a lot of community support
so that I can get that distribution license
to be able to service southern humboldt growers appropriately.
You know, the effort to regulate marijuana
and to tax it is the effort...
- To recriminalize marijuana. - Right.
All through the years that we saw state legislation,
there was always Mr. Big-money-man
standing behind it thinking,
"this is where I'm going to make my many millions."
Mm-hmm.
And every one of them was predicated on the idea
of let's get rid of those small farmers.
- Hmm. - Humboldt county cannot compete
with the efficiencies that'll be developed
- in large farms. - Course not.
What I'm saying on this I've been saying for years.
Branding, branding, branding, branding.
I try to explain this is your brand.
Please become legal, become compliant.
I know it's a bitch to begin with,
it's hard, it's a lot of paperwork,
but once you do that
you own the equivalent of
a napa valley vineyard.
Small pot farmers in California
say the state is not standing by its promise to protect them.
Some say they're being squeezed out
by expensive new regulations
and unfair competition from big cannabis cultivators.
Some farmers accused
the California department of food & agriculture, cdfa,
of going back on its promise
to temporarily limit marijuana grows to one acre.
The one acre cap
was a provision placed on prop 64
that allowed for small farmers
to still have a place in the space
before mega grows came in.
This was something that was in prop 64.
It was guaranteed to us.
The environmental impact report said yes to it.
It was just the reason why
small family farmers came forward
and decided to go into licensing.
In order for us to start issuing licenses
on January 1st,
we had to have emergency regulations in place.
So there was a very short time window
for people to provide public comment.
It was five days.
Then the actual emergency regs came out,
the text of the actual emergency regs,
and in that text,
the one acre cap had been lifted.
In less than 24 hours' time,
it went from being in there to being completely taken out.
It's unjustifiable that this policy was removed.
There is no good reason why we should have large grows
sooner than five years.
And frankly, I think we should be having a conversation
about whether we need them at all.
I had a panic attack.
We had, like, a whole week of everybody just flipping out.
Well, the lifting of the one acre cap
was definitely special interest
that paid some money or donated to a campaign
or blurred the lines in some capacity
to get their needs met.
In the salinas valley,
marijuana entrepreneur Steve deange/o
has been refurbishing greenhouses
to grow cannabis.
He hopes by producing pot on a massive scale
he'll become a brand name in weed.
This place in the mojave desert
is planning on becoming California's cannabis capitol.
This town has a huge number of empty industrial buildings,
basically cannabis factories in waiting.
A new gold rush, of sorts, has kicked off in California.
At medmen, they're hoping lines multiple city blocks long
will help them cash in on
what researchers project to be $5 billion
in newly legal pot sales.
Our more mature stores in California
are doing over $20 million a year in revenue,
and we currently have licenses for 45 stores.
So a lot of work to do,
but yeah, I mean, revenue is big for me.
Former speaker of the house John boehner,
you're all in in cannabis.
I'm all in.
This is the time to go all in on cannabis.
I don't know
how many people are gonna make it through the county,
let alone the state stuff, and have a viable farm.
Many of the counties, humboldt, mendocino county,
they have a cap of 10,000 square feet,
so you're then capped by your county,
and yet the state is allowing mega grows.
Well, that means the market's gonna be flooded
and nobody's gonna be selling anything
and the prices are gonna be going down again and, you know,
where does that leave the farmers?
If you wouldn't mind coming to gather on the gravel
or on the cement upfront.
Thank you all for being here so much.
This is just really a proud moment
for all of us farmers in mendocino generations.
Mendocino generations is a farm collective
that we started in 2016.
And basically,
we started thinking, oh my gosh, there's a Tsunami coming.
Then what are we gonna do?
How are we really gonna survive this legalization?
We have almost 60 farmers.
We're all over mendocino county,
from covelo to hopland
and all the way up to laytonville.
About a year and a half ago, I felt more passive.
Like, "please come buy my cannabis."
But now I'm out there saying,
"meet these farmers. Look at this cannabis.
Isn't this beautiful? Here's our brand.
Look how far we've come."
Just really wanna honor all of you
for sticking to it.
I know it's been super, super hard and challenging,
and a lot of people have been calling me saying,
"I'm giving up. I can't do this anymore."
And I just want them to feel encouraged
that there is hope
and there is, like, light at the end of the tunnel.
I feel like we're stepping on the first stone of the path
that we have been laying down for the last couple of years,
and here we are.
This is our opportunity
to really honestly show the world
who we are and what we can do here
in mendocino county.
I can see that chiah is a hard worker.
When you meet her, you're like, okay, this woman is busy.
She has things to do.
You are one of maybe 50 people she's talking to today.
And instead of throwing her hands up
and being like, "oh my god,
legalization is so hard and crazy
and they're screwing us."
She's like, "okay, this is hard and crazy,
but we're definitely not gonna to do it
without putting hard work in."
She's really looking at it from the bigger perspective,
and also not just mendo gen,
but then taking that to the county level
and then spreading it larger.
So I feel really fortunate to be a part of it.
And it feels like a family.
That's the boost by the lake county tangelo.
The boost is a blueberry sweet tooth
by Morgan Wyatt.
And so, you know,
one thing that we've been trying to do
is talk to people about organic cannabis
and sun-grown cannabis in a new way
and help people understand
that they've been shopping at whole foods
and buying organic,
but they're walking into a dispensary
and buying cannabis
that they don't even know the origin of it.
They don't know where it came from.
They don't understand who grew it.
They don't know anything about it.
And so what we're trying to do is put that face to the farm
that they're getting their medicine from.
J“ we got cannabis j“
J' we got thc j“
J' we got cbd j“
J“ it's my medicine don't you see? J“
Love you, mama.
We're bringing you guys over an order of salve.
Oh, good.
And then, we want you to try...
Our new aroma.
- Okay. So this is our new salve. - This is great. Oh, yeah.
Put some on. Put some on, it's different.
It's different than the old.
Okay. Well, I'm going to sit. I'll put some on my knee.
No problem finding places for pain.
Doesn't it feel good?
It's so silky and I feel it tingling on my knee.
- Already? - Yeah. Yeah.
And I do like the new texture.
- That's great. - Hm-mmm.
They're making everybody produce their labels
a certain way.
And the laws aren't really conducive
for certain businesses anymore.
So we're kinda just looking at
how can we make our business survive
and still have our product out there.
Some of our clients have gotten off their meds
- with this salve. - Yeah.
And you know, for me, that's exciting,
but yet really serious.
'Cause you wanna make sure they don't run out ever.
Right.
We've run into that a couple of times, you know,
and had to really have, you know,
hurried up and made more to get to some of these people
- that really needed it. - Hm-mmm. Yeah.
'Cause they didn't wanna go back on the horrible meds
they used to be on, you know?
So it's a big responsibility.
Well, like I said,
I'm grateful I can have my medicine.
I don't know what's gonna happen, you know?
Luckily we're on the older end of this whole change.
Yes.
You know, we had 40-something good years.
Yep. Hm-mmm.
The challenges I've been faced with
in getting the dispensary going
is the process of the planning departments.
We are losing money.
Seniors are calling me every day.
"When are you gonna open?"
Yeah, we're going to the third floor
instead of going up to planning,
so we can just see if it's...
Okay. That sounds good.
David coordinated the plans.
We're gonna have an answer for him by this evening.
He's gonna review it after they do theirs,
then he's gonna come back to me tomorrow morning
to give the answer to you.
So, we'll see you first thing in the morning.
Thank you. We appreciate you.
- Thank you. - No problem.
You're always so helpful.
That's what I'm here for.
- Thank you. - You're welcome. Bye.
The person we were supposed to meet with
was in a long meeting.
What we were told was that in the morning
we will receive a permit to start.
If that doesn't happen,
we'll be there to confront whoever it is we need to.
Hello. Can I help you?
- How are you? - Good. How are you?
Good. Have an appointment with cardella.
- Cardella? Okay. - Yes.
- And your name is? - Sue Taylor.
Sue Taylor. I'll let her know you're here.
- Thank you. - Mm-mmm.
David's out today.
However, I'm waiting for Alex to get in,
so he can give someone some instructions
so you can get your permit okay.
Oh, good. Then I'm going to wait.
- Have a seat. - Thank you so much.
Do you need anything?
- No. - Okay. Let me know if you do.
Yes, it's been a long and arduous task
in the process of even getting the permit,
but when you're dealing with medical cannabis
and you're a person of color,
you have to have it done the right way.
You have to have it done legally.
You can't do like everybody else.
Everybody else just throwing up, making a lot of money
and get the hand slapped,
close, and open up some place else.
They're working on it. He intends to finish it today.
It may not be in time for you to pick it up today, though.
And we're closed tomorrow because of furlough.
I know, I know.
This is not a great process for you.
However, they're working on it.
Okay, I'll call you.
I have your number and I'll keep you informed.
Doing this is really making me test my beliefs.
We spent all our money. Our family loaned us money.
They believed in us. They believed in me.
You have to pay those people back at some point.
Today is my hardest day,
when I got that disappointment...
When you do all you could do and you still get a no.
I moved out to Los Angeles.
So I went from moving, wait for patients,
to being a part of the seedy part of cannabis
in Los Angeles.
I met some people and they were not good people.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s,
I was impacted by the justice system,
having been incarcerated for a little over seven years.
And of course, being incarcerated,
it changes everything about you.
People don't really understand the effects
and the collateral consequences of the war on drugs.
It just set communities and neighborhoods on a trajectory
where lots of other crimes were simultaneously committed.
Today, the racist war on drugs continues.
We are in downtown Los Angeles
for the bureau of cannabis control's
final listening session, in terms of comments,
before we finalize regulation.
The conversation about equity is so minimal.
And what we're seeing now is they've thrown the baby,
the bath water, the whole bathtub
out of the conversation
so that a select group of people can profit off of this space.
So, we're just doing everything that we can
to hold the state of California and the industry accountable.
So welcome,
and thank you for coming out here today
for our second public regulation hearing
on the proposed regulations.
It's a little bit of a different format
than you're used to with the bureau.
We sit and we listen and we have a court reporter
that's taking down all of the comments.
We're taking notes.
But we don't respond to anything that you're saying.
So if you have a question,
you gotta form it into a comment,
because we're not gonna be able to respond to it.
Speaker number two, please.
Hi, I'm Felicia carbajal,
a latinx community organizer, patient and consumer
pushing for equity, justice, compassion and repair,
compassionate cannabis 2.0.
I, too, am disappointed in the lack of equity
being addressed by the state of California.
Doesn't the bureau care about equity?
Don't you care about the harms that the war on drugs
has done to communities of color?
We ask you to realize and acknowledge
that black and brown communities are more than worthy
of economic and social investment
with action.
The world is watching.
We hope you do the right thing.
They already made their decisions.
They've been dismissive
of lots of portions of the conversation already.
So the powers that be,
to me, have already decided the fate of cannabis
in the state of California.
Controlled chaos, kca at the am. On 106.5
on a 2.3 fm in the inland empire,
I'm Gary Garber.
Here with me is Felicia carbajal.
She's wanting to be a delegate
for the California Democratic party.
- I sure am. - Why?
You wanna get into politics?
Well, I'm doing it personally
because there aren't people who are cannabis advocates
and who are pushing certain conversations
that are relevant to our needs as a community.
And right now, in the state of California,
people of color own less businesses
that are cannabis related.
So we're just trying to do is create an even playing field.
So giving people of color, people who have been impacted,
people who don't have those economic resources,
an opportunity to participate.
So how is your dispensary going?
We've had a lot of challenges with the building itself...
Okay.
Because it was in such poor condition,
and as well as the lengthy process
- of the building permits. - Okay.
Sometimes I get worn down
because people that knows I've been at it for so long,
"when you gonna open?
When you gonna start making some money?" You know?
To heck with these shoots and stuff
and magazine articles...
And all of that.
But the way I see it, by the time we open up,
all of those glitches will have been all worked out.
You are listening to kzyx philo, 90.7 fm.
So today, I think we have a really great show.
Our topic is "jumping through the hoops:
Is getting legal getting harder?"
And my guest is chiah rodrigues.
What would you say
have been some of your biggest hurdles personally
in this process?
Well, there's been a lot.
It's all the little things
that come along with the licensing
and the permitting process. They all add up, you know?
It's getting more and more expensive to do this.
Well, what's the upside?
I mean, what... I can see a lot of...
I know, there's a lot of darkness here,
- it's not a lot of positivity. - Why are you doing it?
It's a huge part of my life and something that I believe in.
And my husband is really dedicated
to growing amazing plants and to farming sustainably.
And yeah, I mean,
we're just really dedicated to this
as a huge part of our lives and seeing the community thrive
and seeing the farmers thrive. That ultimately is our goal.
And we, obviously, want to be selling our cannabis
and having a thriving brand and thriving company,
but it's not just about making money in it.
It never was.
It's just really about that relationship.
You know, I fell in love with doing this,
and this is what I wanted to do.
So I wanted to not get in trouble, you know,
and just be able to keep on going
and doing what I loved.
And it's been a really nice way to live our lives.
We wanna normalize it for our children,
like, we've brought them into the garden forever,
until the regulations came down and said,
"now you have to have a locked gate."
And yeah, that makes sense on a certain level,
but it is really a lifestyle choice.
I think it is about having boundaries.
And that's hard, especially now with a teenager.
It's nice that I work at home
and they see me all the time.
It can become challenging for them sometimes,
'cause, like, true will, like, come out and yell for me
and want me to be able to play.
'Cause they think since I'm home, like, you know,
I can just stop what I'm doing.
And so that's a little tough sometimes.
And same thing for river, you know,
he'd see me around, so they figure that I'm home
and I'm not really working, but I am.
I don't leave to go to a job
and then come home at the end of the day
and leave my work there.
Just having to learn how to set office hours,
and plants don't have office hours.
And so trying to find a balance within that.
This, like, starting a new business together
has been really hard. Like, it brings up a lot,
but I feel like we're stronger for it now.
And sometimes, I guess,
maybe it takes going through some really hard stuff
to reinforce that foundation and strengthen it.
I start my day this morning
really not knowing what's going on
and having a night of...
Difficult nightmares.
There's no other way to put this thing.
This is a nightmare. This is just a nightmare.
Something that you never thought would happen
because you're going forward in legalization,
you're doing everything right.
You've got everything ticked and tied,
and then something like this happens
and you just...
I just wanna break down, but I can't right now.
I have to stay strong and keep moving forward.
On Thursday night,
we were to have received a courier transfer of money.
So this is a licensed, bonded courier
transporting cash from la. Up to humboldt.
And it was a significant amount of money
that we were owed and due on that evening.
Well, a chb had pulled over the car
for having the incorrect mudflaps.
And we're just like, "what?"
And when they searched the car, they found the cash.
So, we're nine months into legalization
and we're still having to conduct business in cash,
because banks won't handle our cash
because it's still a federally illegal proposition here.
So we're having to hire courier services
to move cash around.
Now, it's not illegal to transport cash,
but if the chb thinks
it's in further of anihegalact
which, on a federal level, cannabis is,
then it does become potentially "illegal."
And this is what happens.
The career services stopped by the chb,
and the cash is confiscated by the feds.
I'm dying to fight this
just because it's the right thing to do.
I'm dying to fight this
just because of the social injustice of it.
You know, it's not about...
Yes, the money is important, okay, but it's also about
that this can't keep happening us.
In order to make this move forward,
we have to claim the money.
And once you claim the money,
then you have to open yourself up
to showing all your receipts for the money,
showing how you got the money,
and everybody in our supply chain
then has to be on board.
Brass says I can go ahead and hang?
Yeah.
They just feel that we did what we were supposed to do.
We made payment, you know,
"it's not really my problem" type thing.
Interesting.
Oh, yeah. Not too happy about that.
Not too happy at all.
The phone call I had with him was like,
"hey, you have our support.
That's totally not okay that they did this."
But they weren't willing to do anything to help settle.
Yeah. This is a big, fucked up thing for me,
and I don't wanna have to do it, right?
But they don't know me. You know?
No, they don't know you.
They don't know what you're willing to do.
- They don't know that. - Right.
So, they're saying,
"hey, yeah. Go ahead, girlie. Go ahead, try this.
Just go ahead and try it." And I'm like...
Right. Put your neck out there.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what?
Don't dare me like that. That you got those brass balls?
You think you got brass balls? Yeah.
- Well, I'm, you know... - Right.
Let's just check it out. Okay.
I've gotta make that... I got to run now,
because I gotta make that lawyer meeting.
Okay. I'll talk to you after I talked to him.
- Okay. Thank you. Bye. - Okay.
That's what it fucking comes down to.
They think I'll fold.
It's a hard business. It's a very hard business.
Sometimes I really wonder why the hell I'm doing it.
There was no word on any significant containment
and the problem was the wind.
Wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour.
You can imagine how fast that moves these flames.
Basically, there was a fire in Potter valley
and then the redwood valley.
And that jumped the freeway towards us.
So now it's on Reeves canyon,
which is the Ridge on the other side of our ranch.
We got about ten phone calls within five minutes.
And that was about three in the morning.
So we got up and, like, hustled hardcore,
like, packed as much as we coud at that moment,
then we ended up leaving.
We've just been watching all the news reports,
listening to the news.
Many of my friends' homes have burned down.
It's just been like a nightmare here.
There's a Ridge here between us and the burned part.
So where you can see the grass, right there, as the crow flies,
it's maybe like a half a mile, but as the wind goes,
that's not very much time at all.
That fire grew from 4,500 acres the first night
to 32,000 acres in two days.
That's scary.
That's, like, too close for comfort for me.
That was Ashley oldham.
She's one of my farmers in mendo gen,
and her house burned down
and she's fighting really hard right now
to be let back in to her cannabis farm.
Hello. How are you?
Oldest truck I've seen so far today.
- How are you? - My name's Ashley oldham,
and I'm a permitted cannabis farm
- in mendocino county. - Okay.
And I would like to access my...
Okay. Have you gotten the permit from the sheriff's office yet?
- I should be on the list. - Okay.
Ma'am, how do you spell your last name?
Oldham. O-I-d-h-a-m.
- And your first name? - Ashley. A-s-h-I-e-y.
Okay. You're not here. So you do have to go down
to the command post and check with the sheriff's office.
If they're willing to give you an escort
or give you your name to us,
we'd be happy to let you through.
I'm a permitted cannabis farmer
in mendocino county.
I was told that I'd be on a list.
I've been trying for two days to get in.
Right now, we're not having
any type of escorts at this point.
The update's gonna be around one o'clock
to see if we can let anybody in for any type of escorts.
I don't need an escort,
because the vineyards are getting let in.
And I was promised
that I'd be treated exactly the same as grapes
'cause I'm registered with the county.
- Right here... - At the fairgrounds,
and you need to have your complaints issued there.
Okay? We haven't seen a list. We don't have a list.
Okay.
Apparently they somehow had time to file four pages
of grape farmers to get in,
but not the five permitted cannabis farms.
We are in ukiah, California,
at the fairgrounds.
This is the evacuation.
There's a barn full of hens and chickens and ducks and geese
and who knows what else.
There are a lot of horses here that have been injured
and rescued, you know, from out of the road
that got burns on them.
I have a nursery in Potter valley, California.
I also have a cannabis permit.
Yesterday, Potter valley was completely shut down,
but because I have a nursery permit,
I was allowed entry, front of the line,
to go in and check on my plants.
All of my other fellow farmers with their cannabis permits
that have paid full fees
and are expected to pay up to $5,000,
just in estimated fees,
were not allowed entrance by sheriff allman.
The cannabis has saved the economy
in this county.
- It would not be here like it... - Our own sheriff said that.
He said if it wasn't for the marijuana growers,
this town would be a ghost town.
Right!
And here we are trying,
trying to participate in our communities,
which we already have our communities.
We're reaching out and opening up.
And to have the doors shut in our face, it's wrong!
Yeah. Another great one right here at kmud.
And we are in the middle of our pledge drive,
so I encourage you to call in now.
I know the money's not flowing like it used to be.
The nonprofits, kmud, the mateel, Healy senior center,
all these essential, community-funded things
are scrambling for money.
Before, people dropped 500 bucks
and not think about it.
Now I know at kmud, people give 20 bucks
or bring their change in.
And we have a pledge drive going on, 95 brands.
It's like pulling teeth.
Idunno if we're gonna make it or not.
So, how do I reach the ones that don't come to mateel
and don't care?
They come in, money, money, money,
and the people that come and trim,
when they get paid, they spend their money in town.
It was amazing driving into town today
and hardly seen any cars.
Because usually this time of year,
you can't find a place to park in town.
Everybody's up in the woods planting.
Oh, sorry. Not anymore.
It used to be like that, but, you know...
Yeah. The fishing industry died, the logging industry,
and that's what's kept this area going,
is the cannabis industry.
Cannabis farmers are doing the same thing
as everybody else. They're buying cars,
they put their kids in school, they buy groceries,
they do everything that everybody else does.
And if that money wasn't in the county
that we live in,
it's gonna severely affect all businesses.
And what we're seeing now is only the strong will survive.
Here, in humboldt county.
The small mom and pop grows, I don't think are gonna survive.
I think the price per pound has become so low
that it's not gonna become profitable.
There's people like whoopie goldberg
that has products out.
I mean, there's no way that someone like us
could ever compete with a business like that.
This big business that comes in,
you know, they put up their big grows,
they put up their big extraction facilities,
they buy the absolute most state-of-the-art equipment,
and they have a burn rate
that can be months and even years of losing money,
just generating cash flow,
so that then they can sell that business
to some other, big investment capital person
and make a profit.
But those of us who actually have a business
that we're looking to at least cover costs or make a profit,
we don't have those millions of dollars behind us.
We don't have a long time to lose money.
This grass lot will soon be a marijuana greenhouse.
Cannabis investors are seeing budding opportunity
in new towns.
Now, the California growers association
is suing cdfa,
claiming it's letting big farms squeeze out small growers.
We reviewed the permits the state has granted so far
and found big cultivators
are flocking to Santa Barbara county.
The land here is flat, it's easy to build on,
and people have money to spend.
I definitely went through my period of time
when my relationship with cannabis wasn't good.
I wasn't respecting it.
I was just using it purely recreationally
and started learning more about spirituality
and different plant medicines and teachers.
And that's my approach to it now.
And so my older son,
I feel like his relationship is not good with it.
We were kind of going through some challenging family dynamics
for a while between he and his brother
and he and chiah, and, you know, and he and me,
and then how that affected chiah and I.
And so we kinda had one blowout too many
right before school got out,
and so he's actually not living up here right now.
And I had tried to cut him off from cannabis many times
and saying, you know,
that I don't want you using cannabis again
until you can really look at your relationship with it.
A really good therapy appointment last week, and...
Just want him to come home.
It's tough, you know, like, he's almost 18,
and like, I feel like I don't have
that much more time with him before he's gonna be gone.
I just...
I really miss him.
I was okay and then I walked out here,
and now it hurts.
Ah, fuck.
In February,
like, I couldn't sleep on my right side,
and I could not lay on my back, 'cause it hurts.
Like, put some of your pressure here.
It hurts so much, for, like, five months.
It was just kinda getting worse and worse and worse,
and then around the middle of July, it was like,
I couldn't do really anything. I couldn't walk. I couldn't sit.
It was just horrible.
You know, it's a day-to-day stress.
So we live off, like, trying to survive
and doing the math all the time.
Like, counting our square footage,
figure out how much, you know, money we're making.
At least just give an honest answer. Don't say,
"I'm gonna pay you tomorrow. I'm gonna pay you tomorrow."
And then four months go by
and you don't do anything, you know?
Do what you say you're gonna do.
One distributor, he promised the moon
and gave us a line of bullshit.
And now who knows where our product is.
Plus, Jamie and I, like, we work together,
we live together.
Everything in the whole package has been stressed.
No, see, you missed this whole thing.
See, that's what I'm trying to...
Same with this.
- This is where I cut... - I don't think that...
I think that that's gonna dry just fine.
But if you wanna cut it up, go ahead.
That's what we've been doing in the past.
Gonna look at it under the microscope.
Ifeelhke you're going to.
Well, I'm trying to be cautious. Don't give me lip.
So we gotta just keep things good between us
as much as possible and keep going.
And it's not a busy end of tow.
- Right. - All the businesses
on the same side of the street as you have dedicated parking.
- So it's really... - It's just...
And the thing is,
and I tried to put in the talking points,
is that planning told them
exactly what they needed for the parking exception.
- Right. - They said, "do this."
Right.
We did exactly what they asked us to.
You're right. Okay. All right.
All right. I'll talk to you soon.
- All right. Take care. Bye-bye. - Talk to you soon. Bye.
Even she can't imagine why the hell
the county would hold up this whole entire project
over parking spaces.
In a town that doesn't even have a stoplight.
We've been held up
overreahy ancient parking restrictions,
but we're heading in there today,
and I'm sure we're gonna get our license
because we've done a parking study.
We've done everything they asked for.
We got this!
One nation under god,
indivisible, with Liberty and justice for all.
The first mc processing llc application
contains a conditional use permit
for a dispensary.
And they are proposing retail
of medical and adult use cannabis
and cannabis products.
A parking exception would be required for these uses
on the site.
Robert sutherland,
humboldt mendocino marijuana advocacy project.
The organization I represent
is an organization of small producers
who will strongly depend on this facility
at this time of fast-approaching cnficaldeadfines
for this fledgling industry.
There is a poor parking problem in garberville,
but bear creek road is hardly a road at all,
and it dead ends
a few yards past the project site.
It is basically a little-used driveway.
Hi, my name is Sarah theeley, I'm a neighbor.
And I am in support of approval.
I am also an employee.
Karyn prefers to hire people local
within the garberville area.
I'm production manager for processing.
It's been very hard for me to feed my family of three,
not having this push through
and not having the hours that I need.
I am one of the small growers.
My business plan is relying on this going through.
You've heard the economic difficulties
for growers.
Without my company, a manufacturing company,
packaging and processing,
I can't pay growers.
I'm out of business.
If I can't pay them, they can't pay their taxes.
It's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
And I wanted to keep my business in southern humboldt.
My employees are there, my growers are there,
my roots are there, I live there.
So, just please let me know what I can do.
I don't wanna be out of business for another two months.
People are really depending on me.
Thank you.
Thank you, speaker.
Well, I'm probably not gonna make a lot of people happy,
but I gotta ask the question that is just obvious.
Why is this even before us?
I happened to go back through and look at the picture
that showed the zoning,
and the parking needs to be on-site,
as we see in all projects.
Early on, on this project,
there should've been a discussion
with regard to parking.
Is no possible way that this site can work.
I don't even know why we're seeing this one,
to be honest. And it's very frustrating
seeing how things are so different
for the cannabis industry
in comparison to, what I will say,
more mainstream businesses.
I don't really support the idea of a parking exception...
They might just delay it a short time.
No! It's another month!
It's another month. Or more!
This is where people are signing in
and we're engaging them, right? When they walk up.
I mean, we already have them in front of us.
So, like, we shouldn't mince words over a table.
Voters are gonna be coming probably from that direction
and that direction.
The first thing that you say to the is "hi."
"Good morning."
The next thing you're gonna ask them
is, "who are you supporting?"
And if they say that they're only supporting
like, one person, then you talk about Felicia.
Hi, my name's Felicia.
- Hi, I'm voting for you. - Thank you. I appreciate it.
I work in cannabis.
I work at that intersection of social, racial, gender
and economic justice, so I'm pushing, like,
all of these issues on a daily basis.
I'm already an organizer.
Tomorrow, I'm gonna be back at work,
engaging people, pushing city hall.
Ever since we got married, really,
and proposition 8 passed,
we've been doing a lot of stuff in the community.
Felicia's always taken the lead.
I'm sort of like the cheerleader in the background.
She's been an activist, like, as long as I've known her.
And I never really expected her to actually, like,
run for something, so this is really exciting.
I'm so proud that she's been part of actually
making change in California for cannabis users.
She puts herself out there.
Balloon flower, that's for you.
- Maybe my nephew might like it. - Okay.
No more than four tomorrow.
- Okay. - And one for the board.
- Inside. - Okay, thank you.
Oh, I think they're about halfway through.
And you know, you're always looking at the top seven,
'cause that's who goes to the convention.
The top seven men, the top seven women.
And, you know, within that, on most of the tables,
it doesn't look like that big a spread.
So, it looks like it's gonna be very tight.
That's what I'm seeing right now.
Okay. I'm going to list the top seven
and also the first and second runner up in each category.
Number six.
Number seven is.
The first runner up is... Carbajal.
- Carbajal. - Carbajal.
I'm the first runner up. I'm the first runner up, right?
I'm just excited 340 people
that I don't really know
decided they'd come out and vote for me.
'Cause I only knew maybe 50 of them.
So, do you think it was the balloons?
It was definitely the balloons.
- Definitely the balloons. - Definitely.
- Next time... - Next time, more balloons.
Next time,
we'll have our own balloon person.
We never slowed down, but that's okay.
Hey! We got it!
Hi! You may not be seeing us so much anymore.
- Yeah, god darn. - Thank you.
Thank you.
This particular permit should've took about three weeks
and it took us six months. It's been a lot.
So, we finally got it issued today.
Construction will resume,
which means we're about four months out from opening.
So it's monumental. It's huge.
We plan to open around June,
probably the latter part of June.
And so we're excited about that.
- Absolutely. - Yes!
It will be a 12-year dream coming true.
So, we usually harvest in the morning.
They say that it's better for the terpenes, the plant,
to harvest it at its peak.
Looks like that thing in the center going up this way
might have something on it.
And there's a couple of lower things here.
I think harvest is exciting for people,
but generally,
it's the most stressful time of the year.
But it's nice to see, you know, things finishing
and coming into their full potential.
My biggest concern right now
is having enough money to get through harvest.
This year is different, financially, from last year.
Last year, we had money going into harvest
to pay for everything to get done.
This year, we're waiting on a bunch of distributors
to pay us out for what they owe us.
You know, it's close to $100,000 and people aren't paying.
River came home, so I'm pretty happy.
And I'm being hopeful, you know, trying to trust
that it's gonna shake out well.
Learning how to communicate a little bit better
is a challenge for both of us, I think,
but I think we're trying.
River, if you could make yourself some breakfast,
that'll be awesome.
This is a beauty.
This has been a really difficult time.
My dispensary was never approved by the board of supervisors,
so I just had to walk away.
But through a lawsuit,
I was recently able to recoup most of that cash
that was taken away from me by the feds.
Right now, all we're doing is trying to just stay alive
in the business.
We're just trying to get it done within the regulations
so that we can survive, so that we can go forward.
I try not to get too depressed about it.
I try to just say, okay,
this is just a bump in the road here.
And once we get through this next hump,
we're gonna be able to brand our product better
and brand our values better to the consumer.
And I get discouraged that that may never happen.
And it goes into then the bigger conversation
about small business versus big business
versus is there any hope for any small business,
small farmer, small anything in our country,
in our society, in our capitalism.
Will the consumer recognize the value in our values?
I always thought that would be the case,
and it just doesn't seem to be the case right now.
Part of the whole permitting process
has just really hurt the small farmer,
the true small farmer.
Foranybody that doesn't have the wealth
or the wealth behind them
and they are trying to be a small farmer,
the laws and regulations are weeding that population out.
People are running out,
they're abandoning their land and leaving.
You got to have hundreds of thousands of dollars
to permit your peace.
Not a lot of us have that anymore.
I just went in and said I withdraw from my permit.
Gave them a written thing, you know, and everything.
And they said, "oh, cool."
Stamped it, you know.
And so I don't have a permit any longer,
which I'm glad of, because now I don't owe them
many thousands of dollars like they wanted.
So, no, it's a very sad situation
in this whole thing.
It's been very sad.
I wish I was 30 years younger.
I could really start doing this and have a farm again.
Hlhave a small medical garden,
but, you know, nothing like I used to.
We're making progress. Construction is moving forward.
But until that's done,
I've been continuously going from city to city,
state to state.
What messages about marijuana do you believe?
The second question:
The messages about marijuana do you not believe?
Before I started working in the cannabis industry,
I really didn't know who I was.
Doing the work has really helped me to love me.
And I love the work that I do.
I'm passionate about it all
becausellove the gratification I get
when I'm talking to seniors and they said,
"the cannabis has helped me. Because of you, I'm better.@
you ask me am I excited about getting so close to opening.
We're at the point where
we're doling out money for the projects,
and we're right at the edge of opening.
I don't have any income coming in
other than my social security,
because I used my retirement money
to do this project.
If I focused on that every day, I wouldn't get out of bed.
So I don't focus on what's going wrong,
I focus on what's going right.
Me being here in Washington, DC,
and me making a difference.
I focus on my grandkids are healthy.
Jamal and kiki are healthy.
Kwamin, Khalid are healthy.
Blake is healthy.
But I do fall, and I do cry.
And I can't get up sometimes, but it changes.
It change...
I surround myself with people like that
so they can remind me, no, don't focus on what is.
Just focus on what you wanna achieve.
Focus on how you're gonna get the money.
Not if you're gonna get it,
when you're gonna get it and how.
Put the energies there.
So let's drink to that.
Can you drink and film?
- So I can toast to you. Cheers. - Cheers.
Never in a million years would I ever have thought
I would be here at the capitol building,
talking about cannabis.
How cool is that?
Changes women have to go through.
All right. Let's roll.
One of the major accomplishments I would feel
is when cannabis is federally legal for all.
Thank you for coming.
I learned what this cannabis plant can do,
especially for elders.
Most seniors will not touch the plant,
will not touch it...
Because it's still illegal by federal law.
Seniors don't break the rules.
Now, I've read a lot of research on the cannabis.
You know what got me
was the people that I worked with
leaving wheelchairs, walkers.
The healing that I witnessed changed my mind.
The day of the delegate vote,
I received approximately 348 votes.
I lost by 26 votes,
but the assembly leader from that area
was allowed to appoint specific delegates.
So, because I was first runner up,
I was asked to be a delegate for my assembly district,
all the same.
I'm still optimistic that cannabis is
and has the potential to be a vehicle for change.
I still believe cannabis affords you the opportunity
to be connected to one another.
So, I think this plant's resilient.
She's survived millennias,
even though she's being whored out currently,
she's gonna be fine.
She's lasted longer than all of us on this planet.
She'll be fine.
And the thc is the psychoactive effect,
and the cbd, you don't get high on it,
but it really helps your system to...
Reduces your swelling
and that really improves your immune system.
Well, my job here, I'm a bud tender.
And I sell the products that we have,
products that are in this dispensary
are all permitted for humboldt county.
And are you guys experienced, are you vapers,
- or do you do cannabis? - No.
Last time I smoked was, like, high school.
- Oh, okay. Oh, wow. - Almost, like, 14 years ago.
How much are they? What are their price range?
The large is 50 and the small is 30.
- Okay. - Hm-mm.
A lot of this stuff, I never understood it at all.
Like, the vape pens and all the cartridges.
And now, of course, I understand all of that stuff
and, you know,
which I've actually started to vape myself a little.
Let me try this. Just gimme a few grams.
Gimme a gram of the royal kush.
- Okay. Okay. - And blue green.
I've always been my own boss,
so this has been very interesting to have a boss,
and that's something I'm learning at my old age.
That you have to kind of kiss ass a little bit,
and that's okay.
'Cause I really appreciate this job.
I love my time here.
- Yeah. - I think the wonder wine,
'cause it still has a lot of cbd in there and you'll...
I felt so good about those people,
'cause I knew that they were gonna walk out of here
and have a whole different life once they try this medicine.
I've been pretty down for a couple of years,
you know, the business ending and everything like that,
but I can see the other side now.
And it's kind of a step for me
into my next whatever I decide I'm gonna do.
So, I'm reinventing myself.
I've come up with my new product line.
Sexxpot launched this week.
I've gotta get it out there in the marketplace.
I haven't made one-on-one dispensary sales
in quite a long time.
And I'm taking a meeting with medmen.
You know, medmen has been
kinda the bad boy of cannabis, right?
They kind of epitomize
all the big money that's come into the business
and has not given back,
not supported small legacy farmers.
So, it really will be interesting to see
is this a group
that is gonna support a legacy woman producer?
It'd be great if they brought it on.
Have to make it work for me and for my company, as well.
Never thought I'd be here, doing this, a year ago.
Excited. Terrified. I don't know.
It's hard to tell how I feel about it all.
Mostly, I feel really proud
and ready to take on this next challenge.
That's for sure. A challenge it is.
I was up in northern California
and regulations started to happen
and we were uncertain about the farm.
That's what made me make changes,
was I didn't have the work that I had
and wasn't able to generate income.
So I had to, you know,
go back to other ways of making a living.
And then I slowly just looked
for the perfect place to make my heart sing.
And the ocean just called me back.
Pearl's life has changed because of the regulations.
Ever since I've known her, she's grown cannabis.
This is the first year
that nobody has been doing anything on the farm.
And I don't think it's been easy for Pearl at all.
It's a big change
she didn't ever see really happening in her life.
Nor me.
I think we'll always stay extremely good friends.
Well, there's just a special kind of love
and bond that we have.
I mean, we laugh a lot when we're together.
I think that's a big part of our friendship,
is that we like to see the lighter side of life.
We just have a great time together.
You know, she's my sister friend.
I kind of knew that we were gonna need to make
some kind of changes
in order to have the farm survive.
Basically, we were getting to the point
where last year nothing sold between January and July.
We had also got ripped off by a distribution company
the winter before that.
And we were like, well shit, how are we gonna survive?
We're just not gonna have enough money to make it through.
I would have said that you were crazy
if you would've told me
that I'd be working a full-time job
for a distribution company.
I would have never saw myself doing something like this.
Last time I had a real job
was when I was pregnant with river.
Yeah. It was a big shift for me to go to work every day
and, like, have a boss,
or actually have five bosses.
One of the things I'm gonna be covering
is the entire week's growth,
sales calls and meetings for the coming week.
Cannabis, flower.
So I'm going to delegate this out.
Can you just definitely send a report?
But this report has to be in every Monday morning, right?
Need it by nine o'clock.
Okay.
I talked about this last week,
we have to stay connected.
[Need to know what we 're doin, what's our strategy, you know.
I wanna have more communication on that sid.
And then we need to really start talking about technique.
So, how we can...
When I walked into the space...
It was amazing.
I am ecstatic,
but more importantly, I am very grateful.
One of the reasons why we haven't quit
in the 12 or 10 years is because the passion is deep.
All these new people coming in to it.
People who are just coming in it for the money,
they won't last,
because they'll run through obstacles
and they just quit to another venture.
We didn't quit.
Our vision and mission is clear.
She's been at this for years, and it finally came to pass.
I'm so proud of her.
How she lives her life is how she also does business.
There's no separation.
I never thought I would live to see this happening.
This is beautiful.
You see, most other races, they give legacy.
They have legacies for their family.
African-Americans really don't,
and this is an opportunity to have a legacy.
And I wanna show them, too, that don't give up.
I don't care where you find yourself.
No obstacles, nothing. You keep going.
If it's dear to your heart, don't let anything stop you.
Nothing at all.
I feel really proud of us.
We have learned more than we ever thought we would.
We did things we never expected to do.
We pushed ourselves to the full extent.
We 're freaking pioneers at this point.
Like, we 're gonna look back at this and laugh,
like, oh my god, that was crazy then.
Could you imagine we actually did that?
So that in itself, it's a pretty epic tale.
Well, that's a wrap for me.
But before I go, I wanna ask you all something.
Who is the winner here?
A lot of players are gone,
but we are still here standing.
Stay strong, people,
and make sure you're on the right side.
And always remember, pass that doobie to the left.
This is mum signing off right here on kmud,
people powered radio.
Thanks for listening.
In the corners of the leaf
you can see this right there
starting to get little feathers in there.
That's starting to sex out.
- Which means? - A female.
It'll have a pod if it was a male.
Is one more potent than another?
Female is much more potent than male.
It's probably ten times as potent as the male.