Ettersburg Resident Urges Voters to Sign the HCRI Petition in Letter to the Editor
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Editor:
I request every Humboldt voter to sign the petition now circulating to put the Humboldt Cannabis Reform Initiative on the September ballot. It is a worthy measure.
I came here in 1968. When the crop became lucrative, it was obvious it would crash someday. Much of the whining now is from those who are shocked the crash has come. Too bad we never had government that could foresee beyond greed.
The Reform initiative is a step towards taking back our County from the greedheads. The marijuana industry is as destructive as the loggers once were. The whine that there is too much regulation ignores the many pumps in the streams every summer night, the throbbing generators, the illegal chemical use, the bullying, the huge fire risk. John Ford has not done his job and he routinely violates the law. He has a tough row to hoe.
Some growers are honest and sincere but many are not. Most are here only to sell out the reputation built by hippies who did not grow money. If our industry has a future it’s in honoring the original values, which this ballot initiative tries to do.
I’m familiar with the mj industry, and work with Hummap, the group of organic growers that has twice sued the County. I know that environmental groups such as Epic (which I incorporated) and the Center for Biological Diversity have compromised to the grower greedheads. Its time to act where government and others have failed. Please sign the petition.
Robert Sutherland
Ettersburg
Editor:
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The author, like so many, conflates permitted cultivation with illicit operations: “The whine that there is too much regulation ignores the many pumps in the streams every summer night, the throbbing generators, the illegal chemical use, the bullying, the huge fire risk.”
The problems cited by the author are caused almost exclusively by unpermitted farms, yet the initiative targets the legal farms. Please stop the legal cannabis hate and decline to sign.
Agreed. Not to mention that the intentional destruction of the cannabis industry has skyrocketed logging operations. It’s crazy that this is being led by people living in Kneeland when areas in maple creek, Kneeland, and Korbel are being clear-cut every day. There are worse things than cannabis going on in these Hills. The pig farm in Kneeland, for example, has goats and pigs drowning in their poop, and nitrogen is dumped into the creek. Why aren’t these people talking about the logging or the crappy pig farmers? Bad players who don’t care about the environment are just changing what they sell and going back to clear-cutting. How they treat the earth doesn’t matter. It’s time to give incentives to good farming practices rather than further the destruction of the small cannabis farmer. Do not sign this initiative. Instead, let’s pressure the B.O.S to reinstate the trellis program and have a round go completely to regenerative farmers.
What are you talking about? The clear cuts are green diamond and HRC, who have been using the same silvicultural methods and business practices for decades, all allowed under the California forest practice rules.Bad players who don’t care about the environment? Their business is growing trees and managing forests so their goal is to always be growing a forest which provides wood for society. Why do you live here in the middle of timber country if you do not like logging? I would argue the encroachment of thousands of growers into our forested hills has done irreversible damage to our forests as they have created and brought permanent man made infrastructure along with all of the accompanying litter, sewage, night light, noise, vehicles, and people who now occupy forest lands. Last time I looked, green diamond is not building track homes or 5 acre ranchettes in the woods. So, if it is between greedy encroaching forest harming humans or cutting and replanting trees, the choice is so obvious it is like being hit in the face with a two by four.
I agree. One pig farm doesn’t compare to 1000,s of assholes pulling 500-1000 dep Under plastic.
Right, those activities are already regulated against. More regulation, when the county and state can’t enforce current regulation, won’t hurt anyone but those trying to do the right thing
If this was reform then people would be signing petition. As the business world tries to find more ways to control our industry we need to be careful of HCRI. Read their proposal and you will see that this HCRI group is not helping us they are helping the business world to make it tougher for the grower and new people wanting to grow. I will vote no on the HCRI.
Pumping directly from creeks? generators? Illegal chemical usage? These are all arguments from the pre legal days, all of which are more or less no longer in the legal market. Market forces are already at work and the end of the week game locally is near this petition is redundant and pointless at best.
Hello
Do understand the red tape and B.S. we had to deal with to go legal already?
Would you like to see the notebook of years of getting legal and the cost with each agency?
Now you want more regulations on a problem that has already been addressed?
Yeah that’s a great idea spend more government money they can’t manage already.
How about an initiative that takes cannabis taxes and spends it back on community needs rather than enforcement? Healthcare, education and so on.
Nobody is buying a property today and setting up an illegal grow. They won’t make their money back at $250 a pound.
Get with reality already
Initially I thought these people hated cannabis but not I am thinking they just don’t like permitted cannabis. A lot of the people who started this initiative have small grows. It makes me wonder if they are just trying to pressure the market to make themselves relevant again? It is redundant initiative and doesn’t really punish anyone but the farmers who got permitted. There is no way fish and game is allowing people to pump from creeks on permitted farms. We have to track water use and source we have to track nutrients and IPM as well. Most Regulated farms are working towards being the best they can we want to have tourism which includes a healthy environment. You can’t sell ganja sprayed with pesticides or heavy metals either. There are costly tests required before a batch goes into the market. The whole initiative is based on falsehoods.
Except that many people have friends who own testing facilities or also on a testing facility.
It doesn’t work like that and often times product is tested multiple times from multiple entities before entering consumer market so your hypothesis isn’t realistic. Not to mention the financial risk of a lawsuit from product return and distros and dispensaries seeking compensation for loss of revenue. What your saying may have happened in 2016 but the market has developed significantly. The simple fact that there is so much competition would make it a poor choice to even attempt to sell dirty product. Why would you when there are 15 other farms with clean products trying to make that same sale?
Well the Countys 1.0 ordinance did allow stream diversions as a primary source of water for irrigation, subject to a Special Permit. That’s only for pre-existing farms that applied before like 2016 though. Those farms also had to get a Lake and Streambed Alteration Agreement from CDFW, so yes, at one point, they were allowing it, but, it’s not allowed for new cultivation and those who applied under the current ordinance. However, there is definitely a contingent of permitted “pre-existing” farms that are legally sourcing water from stream diversion, typically diverted to storage during the wet season and then accessed from the storage during the dry season.
The Man Who Walks in the Wood has it right. We have seen the once-thriving communities of small mom and pops be destroyed by the selfish greed of those who defend “The Industry”. And they continue to subvert their regulations in ruining our natural beauty and rural peace. Please sign the petition and let’s see what the rest of our neighbors have to say on election day! Why would anybody who is in the right be worried about bringing the issue to an election?!
Who and which farms continue to subvert the regulations? The one’s I know who have subverted have been caught and fined and are no longer in business. The majority of catastrophic environmental destruction is from illicit farms. It’s unfortunate that the planning department made it too expensive for micro-farmers (mom and pops) to become permitted but punishing people who worked hard to get licensed is not the answer—pressuring regulation change to be more inclusive will. Few waivers for anyone under 2000sqft. The carrot not the stick. We want those super craft people to be able to participate in this initiative will make it impossible for them. Over regulation means Zero future for the mom and pops to come back. Everyone knows that under current regulations, you will be producing at a loss this year and for the next few years so be prepared to have another job as well as a farm. We’re doing it because we love to farm and praying for hope. Most illicit farmers just went back indoors and the ones still going hard outdoors are not the good players. They are the only ones making money because they don’t pay taxes or care how they effect the natural environment. This initiative supports the illicit market and quite frankly something had to change. Legalization was not done properly but the green rushers were raping the land and im happy to see them go.
I agree with your last sentence. However we all know that nearly everybody with permits is scamming wherever they can especially track n trace. I won’t name people but it is extremely widespread. Also there are protected permit holders who run generators loudly outside of regular hours and who bully their neighbors. If other permitted growers would like an enemy then those people should be it- they are the reason this proposition was written! The “hatred” that is talked about is not towards good neighbors or weed at all…it is love for a simple, peaceful rural existence that has been abused by more than a few money-chasers. But yeah we should be shutting down environmentally-destructive unpermitted mega-grows also- I have been saying that since before the corporate “legalization” and I caught flack then too. Partly because the terribly destructive mega-grows were used illustratively as a reason to endorse corporate takeover “legalization”. Ironic rule of anarchy and freedom is: If we do not police ourselves somebody else will. That’s what this proposition is about…
Most of the money chasers will be gone by the end of 2022 they will find cheaper land with business friendly regs. Colombia and Mexico are already poised to take over international market. For people who love this land and a simple way of life, I hope we can come together rather than tear each other down. I was all for the acreage cap, but this initiative has harmful rhetoric beyond just reducing cultivated space. I think your heart is in the right place, but you are bitter, and I am too. We all have experienced some very shitty things both at the hands of greed growers and corporate takeover. I don’t like this as a solution can we pause and find one that works for everyone?
Right on. It seems like now is the time to embrace the farms trying to embody our communities image for the role of cannabis going forward. I believe there are healthier ways to live with our landscape than simply to cluster in a few coastal cities and leave the hills to be managed as timber farms. A vibrant rural community that respectfully manages the landscape for a variety of products, cannabis products among them. How can we encourage responsible stewardship of the hills?
My impression is that most people in the community (both regular commenters on this site as well as the broad group of people that I know in the county) are opposed to the bad actors you describe and want to see them removed from operation.
I wish that the headlines about a bust were accompanied by photos of hundreds or thousands of smart pots in a miny clear cut or some massive diesel storage area leaking, I (and most others) applaud that kind of regulation, actually removing the social, environmental, and economic threats to our community.
If this proposition addressed those problems in a meaningfully more robust way than existing regulations do I think it would have a lot wider support. Like farmer mentioned, macroeconomic pressures beyond any of our control are going to drive the vast majority of large and destructive farms out of business whether permitted or not. This proposition doesn’t change that trajectory. What it does do is put another layer of burden on the few farmers left trying to do the right thing.
That petition only hurts the good neighbors trying to farm legally, the ones that actually give a shit about the county and their community. The current market is taking care of the rest, no more reform needed. The price collapse has closed up more farms than decades of the war on drugs, abatements and regulations ever could or did. Do not sign that petition. It was put together by bitter old people with their heads In the sand about the real current situation in the industry. Everything has a for sale sign on it right now, wake up.
Objectively, it is nowhere f@cki$g close to as destructive as logging.
You are right John Ford has not done his job and in fact he has gone out of his way to bend and even ignore the laws that would protect the environment and neighbors. I have one of these noisy polluting permitted farms next to me in Ettersburg. The project was railroaded through with no concern for the endangered and threatened species on the river. CEQA was ignored with a massive Costco sized building less than 100 feet from the river. Right next to this massive building along with spotted owls we now have a pair of nesting bald eagles on the river that have to listen to the noise Robert Sutherland is talking about. I have friends complaining to deaf ears at the Planning Department about huge generators on Elk Ridge that they have to listen to all night from permitted grows. He is right, Epic and the Center For Biological Diversity are not concerned about these grows as long as they get a license. Someone has to do something if the environmental groups and the government won’t.
I’ll sign it!
You are woefully uninforned and uneducated. Your Polly Anna ancedotes are nothing but hyperbole. Added to that your regurgitation of the acronym CEQA and how it applies to projects shows your understanding of the CEQA exemption process to be little to none. This post is a clear example of how lies, mis truths, the use of buzz words and conjecture is put forth as fact. Dont belive the hype. Dont belive the lies. Go to Humboldt Bay Fire or your local CalFire office. As them how many fires have been caused by genrators on pemitted farms. Go to Humboldt HazMat and as them how many chemical or diesel spills they have responded to on legal farms? Ill save you the trouble. ZERO, nill, none, bubkus, nada.
If you dont like pot fine, but just stop with you nonsence. Get a clue. Get informed. Then maybe you can formulate an opinion based on fact and truth rather the conjecture and hybperbole.
I would sign a petition if it prohibited the use of generators, blackout tarp, and plastic greenhouse glazing.
I would love to see a petition to lower the maximum size of permitted farms.
The petition you suggest would only have an impact if we could lower the maximum sizes statewide. I support that idea!
But that’s never going to happen, and even if it did, growing pot in “mass quantities” is nationwide.
If this passes we need to be able to have full transparency of who is making the complaints against farmers. Harassment that results in loss of revenue needs can no longer be anonymous. It’s time to take this to the courts
Keep your weed out of our forest lands and off TPZ lands. Move to the ag zoned flatlands of the valleys or pick another occupation. I have never heard some farmer who grows vegetables claim he bought a TPZ parcel at Bear Buttes to grow corn and brussel sprouts on a log landing.
Have you heard of homesteaders? Because essentially, that is where I came from. Garlic growing, sun-kissed hardworking mamas and papas who lived simply and free in the mountains. Your assumptions and desire to punish me for living my way of life without any knowledge of my cultural practices, impact or regeneration of the land, and innovative business plan bring the ideas of living in sync with the natural world to a greater audience proves why this initiative is from a limited viewpoint. Perhaps we can evolve and take with us some of the good parts of the culture moving forward.
Garlic.! I love Garlic, especially eating raw cloves, keeps the Wuhan Bioweapon away. I love Italians!
Then you go to burning man and do a bunch of drugs.
Dude your letter sucks ass!!! One OG to another the legals don’t need your stupid conditions. You claim a lot of our history yet your letter doesn’t sound like you been on the frontlines and the judgement of others doesn’t represent us either.
I know who you are and you are no OG, Mr. Tree. So…that would be you claiming some kind of authenticity that you do not have. We used to grow a little, save trees and rehab old logging disasters around here and Woods was right there…Back before it all became about weed and money and greedrushers. In the words of the letter writer….”Some growers are honest and sincere but many are not. Most are here only to sell out the reputation built by hippies who did not grow money.”
Considered OG now and I think ya do not know who I am, not Mr Tree. The person I worked for when I was younger called me a greenrusher. So I do identify with the greedrusher yes from the 80s. That being said yea I do get to say cause I am heavily invested in this industry and have been for a long time. Running my ass off from one scene to another still. Ya wanna label me anything then you can state Mr. Soil because that is how I am known. Regarding the letter it still sucks ass!!
Oh please stop with all the bitterness. If you’re such an OG then you’re part of the problem. If it was your movement, then why didn’t you prevent the current situation? Maybe because you prefer to sit around and complain acting like an oracle of truth.
Tell me how you tried to make things better. How you tried to save the hippy community and back to lander ethos. Something meaningful beyond online comments? Can you provide any evidence I can look up to prove your not some just some old disgruntled cannabis grower?
Sure seems you cling to a nostalgic time when in reality all things must change. They will change again, but this initiative is not the best path forward.
This is the thing mr hayfork,
For many if not most of the og’s who been doing this since the beginning THERE IS NO
“PATH FORWARD “
So while it may just be a dick move I’m signing and voting for this. Just to throw another monkey wrench in a thoroughly broken machine.
//THERE IS NO “PATH FORWARD“//
I agree AB2691 stated in its original form it was for 10k or less and 4 events. The edit before this last edit increased it to one acre and 8 events. This last edit now includes being able to go over an acre if you are an equity applicant which basically everyone can claim.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2691
I’ll agree with your name. You do sound disgruntled.
An airforce of drones armed with pollen and fungal spores would be a good monkey wrench in the works
Well I will say farce is consistent with the people I consider OG. I been grow’in for one of em cause he’s in poor health but a grower has got to grow. So for the past 5 years every season I have had to prove I can grow and specifically grow for him. I know he’s pleased with the results otherwise I wouldn’t still be here but the fucker will never admit it.
I’m no OG and even if I was I would not claim it. Farce’s issues seem to be a desire to turn back to a bygone era and since that’s not possible, then screw everyone who is trying to do the best they can.
I can appreciate your position helping an OG. I’ve sought mentors and elders while offering to help them with my youthful energy. I do it for the experience and opportunities and not any gratification.
I’ll continue trying so that I don’t end up super bitter and pissy with the youth. Keep up the good work and someday you can be the better OG who is grateful. I bet you will.
I have an amazing support system and am truly blessed. I have no issue challenging any grower especially if we are gonna talk history. Before ’84 nope can’t tell ya from my eyes only ears from the family I married into. My eyes have seen every side of this plant since ’84, 89-90 being the worst. Do I consider myself an OG, not really but everyone else does, especially lately. Blessings and hopefully we get to speak in person at the Demolition derby. Maybe farce will come a long seems he needs to be around more positive influences. He’s been on one of his tirades lately I’ve noticed.
IM AN OG. LOUND & PROUD. Wanna got toe to toe on history bring it. Wanna compare days spent under the blades better bring a long list. Ive been growing dope in this county for 35 years. Never had another job. Loved every minute of it and still do. Guess what Farce, times fucking change. Dope growers in Humboldt have long been chemeleons, adapting to whatever changes the hostiles threw at us. Choppers came we went from patches to small patches. They got got better at finding those we went to singles. They got better at finding those, we gre under the bush. They figured that out, we went indoors. Remember Jarboe and Henderson? 955.475? Booger, Wayne, first time a fed lfew over your head hanging from a stabo line? Cuz I do. I was there and guess what? Now Im legal. To me its the last in a line of changes that myself and every other grower has endured to stay in business. Ive been called legacy grower. To me that means that the legacy I leave behind is the tradition of growing kind kind bud in the hills of Humboldt. Adapt or die Farce old boy. Adapt or die.
Watching the drug culture turn on each other as their morally corrupt industry collapses for good is PURE entertainment. 🤡 🍿
Lol — “collapses for good” That’s funny right there. The industry is selling more and more and more product across the country (and in CA) every single year.
Some of us just keep out heads down and adapt.
JB
Change will always happen and adapting is the best way forward. I’m impressed with your vision to consider the CEQA implications, cultural backlash, and seek licensure outside the triangle. Always appreciate your thoughtfulness contributions to the cannabis conversation.
Thanks. Diddo.
I believe this industry has a bright future and given its past (as evidenced by many of us who did Federal time), I hope it’s a very different future. Change is hard, but change is the only certainty.
The chance to build a solid, reputable as well as socially and environmentally responsible business that can be passed through generations matters to me. Such equity accumulation wasn’t possible previously due to obvious fundamental instabilities. I believe there are ways through the maze now to make that happen.
The technology and CA geography/climate is available to do that — no matter whether you’re open sungrown, greenhouse or indoor (and no, the locations for those three will not be the same).
JB
Growing out of season with light deprivation is a perversion of nature.. Light dep is single handedly responsible for many of the Cannabis community’s , and the general public’s woes, far more so than the mile long list of other valid reasons that are commonly discussed on this platform by the army of self proclaimed OG’s.
Oh how I can count the endless amount of ways that light dep has tainted our relationship with this plant and nature.
I would sign a petition to ban light deprivation in a heartbeat..
I dare anyone to come up a solution that would take a bigger bite out the destruction of our environment, the over supplied local market, artifical inflation of land values, reduce electrical grid demand, reduce fire risks, freeing up resources who’s time and money could be of better use else where in the community, increasing the value of the “Humboldt Grown” cliche. . I could keep going, but I think I would rather use my time to begin drafting the language for a “Humboldt County Light Deprivation Ban”.
Thumb up or down if you would or wouldn’t support an effort to curtail Light Deprivation in Humboldt.
Would land use designations for light dep only in certain areas open up a can of worms that would be harder to agree upon than a flat out ban?
I don’t have any expectations that this effort would ever gain traction, but it would be a gratifying way to give a proverbial big middle finger to a very large group of people who are dangerously far out of touch with nature.
//”Growing out of season with light deprivation is a perversion of nature.”//
I sure hope you don’t water or weed your garden. I hope you don’t use a hothouse for starts or protect your plants from a early/late frost. Do you prune?
All “perversions of nature” by your own standard.
JB
Hyperbole is simply a tool of rhetoric. Yes..If you need a hothouse for starts or to “protect” from early late frost your growing out of season.. all the signs of poor farming practices. As the first and last frost, rain or snow are indicators, a farmers cues. Comparing watering and weeding to the excessive use of energy, plastic and other toxic materials in order to “protect” the plants your growing out of season is a bit absurd. Your probley the type that think horses need blankets in the winter too huh?
I’m for it. Let’s draw up the petition.
“ If our industry has a future it’s in honoring the original values, which this ballot initiative tries to do.“ Except that this initiative doesn’t support the small farmer in any way. When I read the ballot I see many things that will make it harder for the small legal farmer to survive at all. There is zero support for the small farmer written into this bill. Nothing that would make anyone believe it would be helpful. The people collecting signatures seem clueless about it all. I would never sign or vote for this.
Anyone pushing an initiative claiming to help the small farmer, but whom isn’t a small farmer should be viewed with extreme skepticism.
DCC
DFW
CDFW
STATE WATER BOARD
STATE EPA
CDTFA
HBLDT PLANNING & BUILDING DEPT
HBLDT AG DEPT
HBLDT DHS
HBLDT HAZMAT
HBLDT PUBLIC WORKS DEPT
Thats a list of the entites that regularly visit my legal farm for onsite verifyable documented inspections.
CEQUA EXEMPTION
SUIR
LSAA
STATE WATER BOARD TIER 1 ENROLLMENT
STATE WATER BOARD NOTICE OF APPLICABILITY
STATE WATER BOARD REORTING
DFW DIVERSION REPORTING
HAZMAT/CUPA REPORTING
STATE EPA REPORTING
STATE CULTIVATION PERMIT
COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION APPROVAL
COA COMPLETION
Those are a sample of the permits and certifications needed to operate a legal cannabis farm in Humboldt.
Humboldt County Cannabis Farmers are the most regualated, most inspected group of Cannabis Farmers in the Country. We should not be trying to tear down the fledgling industry but covet it and help it grow to maturity. Stop the BS. Its legal now and its regulated.
Is it possible to avoid some of those agencies and their red tape if you reduced your canopy size and were using a water source that wasnt subject to regulation? Please tell me your not running deps in the hills off grid with a bunch of plastic tarps/pvc/propane heaters/generators!?!
NO. And those things you mentioed are happenig at EVERY and ANY Agriculture Business in some form or another. Every bite of food you consume or piece of clothing you put on (unless you raise all of your own food of course) inculding organically or sustainably farmed is using plastic, pvc, propane, diesel, tractors etc.
I opearate a 10k square foot farm on that farm I preform activites to cultivate. I perform those activities in accordance of State law & code, county ordinace and code and regualtions too numerous to list. I value the land I own and have lived on and farmed for 35 years, since I was 18 years old. I cherish my community and I am actively involved in making it a better place JUST LIKE THE VAST MAJORITY OF ALL THE CANNABIS FARMERS I KNOW. This idea that permitted farms are liars and ne’re do wells is absurd. Its time to normalize the cannabis industry.
Well that sounds swell, no bones about your setup.. but Vast Majority of all the ones you know? I guess the next logical question would be just how many do you know exactly? And not like Facebook know them, or know of them.. how many do you actually know? Would you venture to say you know as many as a Farm Labor Contractor?
I get the whole being lumped in with the bad apples thing, your preaching to the choir on that one.. but I’m here hear to tell ya, more than the Vast Majoirity of the commerical farms I have worked with are NOT making this a better place.. not even close, no matter what angle you try to view it from.
Your a good apple in a bunch of spoiled apples.
“Every bite of food you consume or piece of clothing you put on (unless you raise all of your own food of course) inculding organically or sustainably farmed is using plastic, pvc, propane, diesel, tractors etc”.
Uh huh.. all true.. but not sure what’s your point of emphasizing my point?
You sound as if your saying “well everyone else is doing it”, or that your saying “omg nobody could ever live without plastic!”
Im saying the reality of Agricultural Business is that for better or worse it uses plastic, diesel etc. So until you can come up with better environmentally and economically sustainable methods this is what it is.
As to your other question, I have been living in this County and growing on the same piece of land since I bought it 35 years ago at the age of 18. I not only know but have personal relationships with over 50 farms located throughout the county but periferally touch 100 more. If you have worked for “bad apples” then obvioulsy your running with the wrong crowd.
A 100 out of 10k is a very limited perspective. What is with the sense of entitlement over how long folks have lived here? And too be clear, we work with farms..not for them.
Just making up for all the years of a free pass bro. Man up. You guys Crack me up.