As we reported last year, Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Downey has long been asking the federal government for help tracking down and arresting marijuana growers, and now he’s gonna get it. Today the White House announced that Humboldt County has been lumped into the Northern California “High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area,” or HIDTA. What does that […]
marijuana
Posted inNews
The Nation Examines Pot’s Enviro Impacts via Humboldt County
In the special marijuana-themed Nov. 18 issue of The Nation magazine, reporter Seth Zuckerman chronicles the environmental impacts of indoor and outdoor grow operations here in Humboldt County. Quoting locals such as Friends of The Eel River Executive Director Scott Graecen, HSU lecturer Tony Silvaggio and Arcata City Councilman Michael Winkler, Zuckerman describes the scope […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Stalk Market
On my trip to New York last week I was reminded of two seemingly obvious facts. First, you shouldn’t fly in and out of our recently rechristened “California [Fogbound] Redwood Coast — Humboldt County [Crapshoot] Airport” unless you have a day to spare on either end of your trip. And second, marijuana is everywhere. Like […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
That Darn Cat
Regular weed columnist Ryan Burns is in New York this week, and he declined my suggestion — in the name of investigative journalism — to pack some of Humboldt’s finest on his cross-country flight to test just how lenient the TSA’s gropey screeners are (see the Oct. 10 “Week in Weed”). So instead, I’m here […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Help a Reggie Out: Watts Looking for ‘Edibles’
The man of non sequiturial beat-box hilarity has arrived, and apparently he’s familiar with our county’s reputation. His tweet from yesterday: And his Vine from earlier today. Welcome, sir.
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The High Court
You could argue that nine grown-ups who sit around all day in silky black robes always look ridiculous, but the U.S. Supreme Court looked especially foolish last week when it decided not to hear an appeal of the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug — that is, a substance with no […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Land of Oz
It’s marijuana harvesting season in Humboldt County, which means, among other things, that would-be trimmers are loitering in Garberville, sticky bills are flowing into local cash registers and law enforcement is making ginormous drug busts every day or two. A couple weeks ago, for example, local sheriff’s deputies and the DEA-funded Cannabis Eradication and Reclamation […]
Posted inNews
Sheriff Downey: ‘It Sickens Me What’s Happening to Our County’
Members of the Buckeye Conservancy gathered along with HSU faculty, local business owners and timber industry professionals last night for a presentation by Sheriff Mike Downey on the impact of industrial marijuana grows. “It sickens me to see what’s happening to our county,” said Downey. In a 20-minute slideshow presentation the sheriff illustrated the environmental […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Green-eyed Cops
We get a lot of press releases here at the Journal, a steady drip of emails announcing everything from ribbon-cuttings to dance recitals to (let’s see what’s at top of my inbox here) a Holiday Gift Guide pitch for German-made electric irons. (Eat your heart out, Clark Kent.) Our favorites by far are law enforcement […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Ganja Capitalism
The pharmacy bottles pictured above are part of a collection of old cannabis-industry flotsam that belongs to “an unofficial historian in Mendocino County.” A slideshow of the collection recently appeared on High Times online, and the post should prove enlightening to anyone who considers medical marijuana a recent invention. One photo shows tall, green tins […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Expensive Weed
Last Thursday, a crew of volunteers was helping the state Department of Fish and Wildlife conduct a marijuana-eradication mission in a remote part of the Sequoia National Forest when Shane Krogen, a 57-year-old volunteer, fell out of a helicopter, dropping 50 feet to his death. Friends described him as a generous and dedicated outdoorsman who […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Humboldt Growers’ Bad Reputation
On last week’s episode of “Cannabis Consciousness,” a monthly marijuana program on KMUD, guest host Kevin Jodrey posed a heartfelt and faintly anguished question: How can Humboldt County’s more conscientious marijuana cultivators — the innovators, the old-timers and the small-timers, people who care about the environment and their community — how can these folks get […]