Cannabis Studies Instructor is Building Rural Resilience in Northern California, Says Cal Poly Humboldt
Instructor Daniel Mar takes students in his CANN280 to a watershed to observe firsthand the relationship between cultivators and the environment. [Image from Cal Poly Humboldt]
Cal Poly Humboldt Sociology instructor Daniel Mar is playing a vital role in the future of sustainable cannabis farming in Humboldt and Mendocino counties.
As an active permaculture designer, Mar has been a watershed and farm consultant for over 10 years, and consults with many nonprofits in the region. Most recently, his work with Mendocino County’s Rural Resilience Project (RRP) is allowing for incredible momentum on farms and in the classroom.The RRP recently received a $3.1 million grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Cannabis Restoration Grant program, which will provide technical assistance for Mendocino County cultivators to implement sustainable cultivation practices.
For Mar, this project is a perfect opportunity to support cannabis farmers while providing his students with valuable, real-world experience, offering case studies that illustrate the intricate relationship between the cannabis industry and the environment. These insights help students deepen their understanding of the field and explore the various career opportunities their degree can open for them.
As the environmental stewardship lead in the Cannabis Studies program, Mar teaches classes such as Environmental Policy and Regulations, Cannabis and Environmental Sustainability, and a new course this semester, Cannabis and the Environment.
Mar’s goal with the RRP is to make sure cannabis farmers remain ‘qualified cultivators,’ keeping them compliant with various environmental agencies. He visits their farms and evaluates what they are doing well, and where they need resources and support for things like water conservation, habitat restoration, sediment discharge and wildfire mitigation.
“It’s so exciting to see an environmental agency like the Department of Fish and Wildlife, who regulates and governs cannabis cultivation, actually putting important resources back into the cycle,” Mar says.
Mar’s experience in the field with regenerative agriculture and the cannabis industry, combined with his role as an educator allows him to engage more deeply with students out in the field, and bring his research to the University to better understand the socioeconomic impacts of programs like this.
“It’s my responsibility as an educator to not only share my knowledge with my students, but to also provide them with relevant experiences to apply that information,” says Mar. “The only way to do that is to take them out into the watersheds that are the venue for our local cannabis industry and observe firsthand the relationship it has with the environment. It’s the same responsibility that I accept in my work. Applying the knowledge that my observations have brought to help create a more sustainable and regenerative cannabis industry.”
Listen to Daniel Mar on a recent episode of the Subsistence Crop Podcast presented by Cal Poly Humboldt’s Cannabis Studies Lab.
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Meanwhile:
Children Who Live With Cannabis Smokers Test Positive to the Drug.
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You smoke, they smoke.
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Using data from these sources in a new study, researchers found that 69 percent of households reporting in-home cannabis smoking had a child with detectable cannabis biomarker levels – compared with just 24 percent among households not reporting in-home cannabis smoking.
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“As young children spend most of their time at home, reducing in-home cannabis smoking could substantially reduce their exposure to the toxic and carcinogenic chemicals found in cannabis smoke,” determined by Osika Tripathi, an epidemiologist at UC San Diego.
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Go figure.
Reminder. Please post links or at least the source for information. I went and found it here: https://www.sciencealert.com/children-who-live-with-cannabis-smokers-also-test-positive-to-the-drug
I’m curious about the “24 percent among households not reporting in-home cannabis smoking.” How would those kids be exposed? That’s a lot of young kids somehow magically getting exposed to marijuana. I read the link above and this probably explains it. “Participants could have underreported in-home cannabis smoking, especially since recreational cannabis use was not yet legal in California when the data were collected.”
Sorry about not posting the link.
The text was a chunk of a web article that I saved in ’email’ awhile back, I forgot to save the link. Usually post some fairly ‘documented and authoritative’ stuff… some of which you don’t like to post.
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Imagine:
Cal Poly helping Tobacco Growers.
Cal Poly helping rural Still operators. (ala… alcohol)
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Actually, if somebody wants to do dope…
I support being able to raise 6 plants for ‘personal use’.
But I don’t support the ‘commercialism of it.. or the new industrialization’ of it.
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Inhaling smoke into your lungs… that’s all bad stuff to do your body.
Later on, I suspect there may be some very nasty medical problems that arise.
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I realize this topic may be hard for you… may be caught between two ‘realities’.
I don’t think you understood my comment. I was trying to figure out the weird number of kids exposed to cannabis smoke. I’m not for parents smoking around their kids or any adult that isn’t smoking also. I recommend outside or at least in another room. No one should inhale second hand smoke–tobacco or cannabis.
Also, they could have been exposed at other relatives’ homes ie aunt uncle sibling etc. While my parents did NOT smoke pot, I was exposed as a kid while visiting my cousins one time. I walked into a room full of smoke and got a headache and felt sleepy.
I have never tried it but have been exposed. I have zero interst in it but believe it should be legalized. I am not sure smoking it is the best way however due to many factors like the one above.
That is just one more example of the never ending (100+ years now?) campaign against marijuana. I’m amazed I see it on RHBB (because a group pays for it, I believe), I hear PSAs about it on KMUD, etc. That right wing funding just keeps coming! Not to say there are not some concerns from, say, ‘second hand smoke’, but the media thrust against weed/pot/cannabis is disproportionate to the other negative influences of intoxicants and drugs in this country!
I wish my parents had smoked weed instead of their nightly martinis (or whatever hard liquor they consumed as trends changed). If kids grow up in a weed using home, the second hand smoke would have long disappeared from their lungs/ body. (Actually I smoked a ton of weed myself, stopped 30+ years ago, and no sign of that is anywhere in my health chart). While the scars of my out of control drunk parents have affected me for life!
I would put up press releases containing the same information. But yes, I sell the ads. And do I think there are folks who smoke too much marijuana? yes. Apparently, you do also as you quit smoking. I also think there are folks who eat too many cookies, that doesn’t mean I think cookies should be illegal and that folks who eat them responsibly should be deprived because other folks struggle to eat within limits.
Sounds like excuses to me. If I were the Sheriff, I’d be raiding all the cookie jars. I’ve seen first hand the negative effects that stuff has on people, and that stuff can seriously harm developing children.
This tops the charts for being the biggest waste of taxpayers money. Crap like this is why your vehicle registration fees are going up! Who is the idiot that decides programs like this get funding? There’s more important studies that would benefit our countries future. Let’s hope Elon has the chance to trim this fat and those who concocted the idea .
Understand the world around you is so terrible right? You realize many of the kids. Including my girlfriend get to expand their ideas of the impact of cannabis. Organic farming practices inspections and biological surveyers, be it birds, plants, pesticide, setting limits on ability expand square footage EMPLOYS STUDENTS. The management of monocultures in a very biodiverse area is important and your inability to see that or recognize it shows you are wildly out of touch. I almost forgot the fish and water. The Klamath , the Matole and water ways all over California are so important to manage. Depending of the style of grow a single plant can take 1(indoor) -20(big outdoor) gallons a day. Now mulitple that by every plant in Humboldt. That MILLIONS OF GALLONS A DAY for just cannabis in just Humboldt. Now expand that to the State. Now apply that Nationally. I think you just saw 3.1 million dollars and lost it. Elons not coming to save you.
In the meantime, the state is shutting down most of the DMV. The priorities of the majority will prevail. Don’t get used to this crap being the normal. Citizens don’t need the financial drain of poly. The place will be a victim of the economy and wouldn’t upset the majority of the population if it was closed.
“The place…wouldn’t upset the majority of the population if it was closed.”
The world will be better off when this cancerous growth is removed.
Then it is a plant that shouldnt be grown at all.
Dry farming? Ever heard of it? The rest is bunk. Less quantity, better quality for all vegetables and plants. Planting with the seasonal water table and late winter/early spring rains, in hugel beds, with mulch and compost. Mars. Elon is not only inventing the technology, he is going there. Do you know why he wants to establish a human colony on Mars? So when the asteroid hits, there will be an off Earth colony of humans and animals which survive. And the asteroid and/or comet is coming because the universe is dynamic, not static. We are mere observers and temporary renters. It’s inevitable and already on its way. Destiny. Extinction. Rebirth. Universal Natural Selection. Seems pretty smart of Elon to want to maintain a semblance of humanity, animals, and the history of the world we inhabit for the future. This, while voluntarily being the cutter of waste, fraud, and abuse in the present.
CalPolyp is a colossal waste of tax dollars. Cannabis Studies? Wow. We’re paying for this asshole?
100%
Boy- Talk about a position that should be cut! There’s some wasteful spending right there. We need a CA DOGE to start slashing such blah blah blah…
On this we can agree.
This is a ridiculous course.Like so many other college courses these days.
Like advanced basket weaving?
Transgender studies anyone??
lol, Is he here to study how humbolt county fucked up their weed industry so bad?
Possibly. Also possible that nobody cares “how humboldt county fucked up their weed industry so bad.”
I wish my parents had smoked weed instead of their nightly martinis (or whatever hard liquor they consumed as trends changed). The second hand smoke would have long disappeared from my lungs/ body. While the scars of out of control drunk parents have affected me for life!
In the past, cows ate hemp in the fields, and we drank their milk, so all of us got exposed to cannabis and had cannabinoids in our systems. Cannabis is proven safe and effective, even for kids, so there really shouldn’t be any problem here. If a kid breathes in secondhand smoke, good for them. I bet their day will end up a lot better.
What a load of self righteous nonsense. Daniel Mar is nothing more than a glorified leech, siphoning stolen cash from pot growers under the guise of “sustainability.” That $3.1 million grant? It’s just taxpayer money funneled through the system to keep clowns like him employed while he plays permaculture dress up. Cannabis grows aren’t trashing the environment, studies show their impact is negligible compared to industrial ag or urban sprawl, but Mar’s happy to milk the “restoration” racket for a paycheck. He’s not helping farmers; he’s shaking them down, forcing compliance with pointless regs so he can justify his cushy gig.
And the students? Poor saps are just props in his ego trip, dragged out to farms for “real world experience” that amounts to busywork and jargon about “watersheds” and “sediment discharge.” He’s not educating anyone, he’s wasting their time with sanctimonious fluff while pocketing the proceeds. The guy’s a net negative: takes growers’ money, gives nothing back, and hides behind a fake halo of environmentalism. Humboldt and Mendocino deserve better than this grift.
This is more like a class on how to fleece Uncle Sam for $3.1 million. What a joke.