FruityBud
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2007
- Messages
- 2,294
- Reaction score
- 3,399
Education has long been preached as a way to keep children away from drugs. In Hayfork, Calif., it's the walk to school that has Superintendent Tom Barnett worried.
This hardscrabble Northern California town has become a hotbed for medical marijuana farming. Youngsters stroll much of the year past pungent plants flourishing in gardens and alleys. Some students talk openly of farming pot after graduation -- about the only opportunity in this depressed timber town.
"It's not a subculture here," said Barnett, who heads the Mountain Valley Unified School District. "Marijuana is drying in their houses. It's falling out of their pockets."
In Trinity County, cannabis cultivation is upending the rural culture of one of the state's most hard-luck regions. Drawn by the sunny, cool climate -- and a local ordinance permissive of medical marijuana farming and possession -- big-city refugees have brought a decidedly urban edge to hamlets such as Hayfork, about 250 miles north of San Francisco.
This town has no stoplights. No home mail delivery. Nearly a quarter of its 1,900 residents are poor. But that hasn't stopped outsiders from bidding up the price of real estate with sun-soaked southern exposures, all the better to cultivate plants that can grow 12 feet high or taller.
The sheriff's office estimates 10,000 plants are growing in a single remote subdivision known as Trinity Pines. Lots on its southwest-facing slope sell for as much as $50,000, up from about $3,500 five years ago, according to real estate broker Steven Hanover.
Fall harvest season brings strangers with dreadlocks and cash boxes. Some farmers guard their crops with electric fences, razor wire and snarling dogs. Hikers have been threatened at gunpoint for wandering too close to where they are not wanted.
"It's just torn the fabric of our society," said Judy Stewart, 69, a retiree who has lived in Trinity County for more than 50 years. "It's pitted people against one another."
How Trinity County came to be dubbed "Northern California's pot paradise" by High Times magazine is a story of law, lawlessness and geography.
Just over 14,000 residents are spread across its 3,000 square miles. People live as they like in mountains thick with trees, separated from civilization by winding roads and "No Trespassing" signs. For decades, that's made it easy to grow marijuana.
Trinity County has "always been a pot county. Our climate in these little mountain valleys is conducive to great cannabis," said Mike Boutin, who runs Grace Farm, a collective. He said he moved there to grow and sell medical marijuana on the black market. He now cultivates it legally because of California's Proposition 215.
Known as the Compassionate Use Act, that statewide ballot initiative approved by voters in 1996 allowed patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other illnesses, as well as their caregivers, to grow and possess the drug.
Locals in Trinity say California law is so permissive that almost anyone can get a doctor's recommendation. Officials say they're powerless to do much about it.
"All they need is a recommendation by a doctor on a match book," said Roger Jaegel, a county supervisor. "Dr. Seuss could be writing these prescriptions."
The upshot, critics say, is that a law crafted to help sick people has morphed into a lucrative trade. In Hayfork, some farmers plant pot near public roads. Cars with out-of-state license plates pour into town during the harvest.
"We're beginning to feel like Colombia," Jaegel said. "It's a difficult thing for small communities to have to put up with."
Marijuana advocates say the true danger is drug cartels operating large illegal operations on public forest land. Indeed, the Trinity County Sheriff's Department -- with a total of 15 officers -- devotes most of its drug enforcement efforts to fighting those organized gangs.
"I just wish recreational pot smokers could understand what they are supporting," said Joshua Smith, natural resources project manager at the nonprofit Watershed Research & Training Center in Trinity County. "They're supporting clear-cutting the forest, pesticides, de-watering the streams, poaching wildlife, Mexican drug cartels and human trafficking."
hxxp://tinyurl.com/yeaae3x
This hardscrabble Northern California town has become a hotbed for medical marijuana farming. Youngsters stroll much of the year past pungent plants flourishing in gardens and alleys. Some students talk openly of farming pot after graduation -- about the only opportunity in this depressed timber town.
"It's not a subculture here," said Barnett, who heads the Mountain Valley Unified School District. "Marijuana is drying in their houses. It's falling out of their pockets."
In Trinity County, cannabis cultivation is upending the rural culture of one of the state's most hard-luck regions. Drawn by the sunny, cool climate -- and a local ordinance permissive of medical marijuana farming and possession -- big-city refugees have brought a decidedly urban edge to hamlets such as Hayfork, about 250 miles north of San Francisco.
This town has no stoplights. No home mail delivery. Nearly a quarter of its 1,900 residents are poor. But that hasn't stopped outsiders from bidding up the price of real estate with sun-soaked southern exposures, all the better to cultivate plants that can grow 12 feet high or taller.
The sheriff's office estimates 10,000 plants are growing in a single remote subdivision known as Trinity Pines. Lots on its southwest-facing slope sell for as much as $50,000, up from about $3,500 five years ago, according to real estate broker Steven Hanover.
Fall harvest season brings strangers with dreadlocks and cash boxes. Some farmers guard their crops with electric fences, razor wire and snarling dogs. Hikers have been threatened at gunpoint for wandering too close to where they are not wanted.
"It's just torn the fabric of our society," said Judy Stewart, 69, a retiree who has lived in Trinity County for more than 50 years. "It's pitted people against one another."
How Trinity County came to be dubbed "Northern California's pot paradise" by High Times magazine is a story of law, lawlessness and geography.
Just over 14,000 residents are spread across its 3,000 square miles. People live as they like in mountains thick with trees, separated from civilization by winding roads and "No Trespassing" signs. For decades, that's made it easy to grow marijuana.
Trinity County has "always been a pot county. Our climate in these little mountain valleys is conducive to great cannabis," said Mike Boutin, who runs Grace Farm, a collective. He said he moved there to grow and sell medical marijuana on the black market. He now cultivates it legally because of California's Proposition 215.
Known as the Compassionate Use Act, that statewide ballot initiative approved by voters in 1996 allowed patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other illnesses, as well as their caregivers, to grow and possess the drug.
Locals in Trinity say California law is so permissive that almost anyone can get a doctor's recommendation. Officials say they're powerless to do much about it.
"All they need is a recommendation by a doctor on a match book," said Roger Jaegel, a county supervisor. "Dr. Seuss could be writing these prescriptions."
The upshot, critics say, is that a law crafted to help sick people has morphed into a lucrative trade. In Hayfork, some farmers plant pot near public roads. Cars with out-of-state license plates pour into town during the harvest.
"We're beginning to feel like Colombia," Jaegel said. "It's a difficult thing for small communities to have to put up with."
Marijuana advocates say the true danger is drug cartels operating large illegal operations on public forest land. Indeed, the Trinity County Sheriff's Department -- with a total of 15 officers -- devotes most of its drug enforcement efforts to fighting those organized gangs.
"I just wish recreational pot smokers could understand what they are supporting," said Joshua Smith, natural resources project manager at the nonprofit Watershed Research & Training Center in Trinity County. "They're supporting clear-cutting the forest, pesticides, de-watering the streams, poaching wildlife, Mexican drug cartels and human trafficking."
hxxp://tinyurl.com/yeaae3x
