A California bill aimed at protecting dudleya, sometimes called “live-forevers,” from the international black market by imposing stiff fines for illegally taking the succulents from public and private lands is now sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. The bill authored by Assembymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) and sponsored by the California Native Plant Society comes […]
black market
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘Illicit Markets’ and Cultural Insensitivity
I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a source who works for a cannabis advocacy organization informing me that, “across the industry,” folks in the weed world are asking the press not to use the term “black market” any longer because it is “not culturally sensitive.” “Illicit or illegal market is the […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Flower Service Comes Tableside
A recent audit by the California Department of Finance on the state’s nascent cannabis regulatory framework found the newest arm of the Golden State’s bureaucracy is suffering some growing pains. The audit found the state Bureau of Cannabis Control is currently unable to “provide effective and comprehensive oversight of cannabis activities” within the state and […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Black Market’s Legacy
Fifty dollars worth of weed. That’s reportedly what led four young men to arrange via Snapchat a meeting with a 16 year old on the dark Arcata street. According to Arcata Police Chief Brian Ahearn, they’d planned to simply hand over whatever small quantity of black market cannabis $50 buys these days and go on […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Pot Full of Privilege
White privilege, please come get your boys. As the nation watched transfixed last week by news that federal prosecutors had charged at least 50 people in a brazen college admissions scandal in which rich parents allegedly paid millions to get their kids into universities like Yale and Stanford, young Malcolm Abbott strolled out of his […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘Fragmented and Uncoordinated’
California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom made national news last week, announcing during his State of the State address that he would be withdrawing most of the state’s National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border, even as President Trump was readying to declare a national emergency. The move was seen nationally as the latest battle cry from […]
Posted inNews
As Cannabis Markets Lurch, Some Humboldt Towns Are Rising, Others Falling
First quarter sales at The Garden of Beadin’ are bad. The small beading supply store, which has been operating in Garberville for 33 years, is used to seeing a slower stretch at the beginning of the year but owner Charlotte Silverstein attributes unusually poor sales in 2018 to the impact of cannabis legalization. “In this […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Our Shrinking Habitat
For too long now, Humboldt County has encouraged the reckless and destructive expansion of black market marijuana in forest habitat. The recently proposed commercial marijuana ordinance continues this dismal policy. Rather than learning from the massive failure of the medical marijuana ordinance, the proposed commercial marijuana ordinance continues to coddle black market growers. Rather than […]
Posted inNews
Culture Change
Mark Rowley has spent just about all of his 62 years in Willow Creek and says he’s never been tempted to move. That is, until now. Why — after having raised two kids and trading one successful business for another — would Rowley consider leaving the valley his family has called home for three generations? […]