Inside California’s Cannabis Crisis

It’s a raw December day in the heart of California weed country, and thousands of cannabis growers, purveyors and smokers are gathered at the 18th annual Emerald Cup Harvest Ball in Santa Rosa, California. The blissful funk of a psychedelic soul band wafts from an outdoor stage as a chilly drizzle falls, and chipper corporate promoters hand out branded rain slickers to shoppers. They’re waiting to get into a makeshift dispensary for the popular cannabis brand Cookies, housed in a magnificent geodesic dome packed with display cases full of bud, concentrates, vape cartridges and seeds for sale. In the indoor Puffco Pavilion nearby, buyers are examining jars full of frosty nugs and haggling over cannabis seeds and plant cuttings, some of which are selling for up to $1,000. There’s weed everywhere you look. California’s enormous marijuana market, which reached an estimated $4.4 billion in sales in 2020, has seemingly reached peak cannabis capitalism.

The mood is decidedly different in a neighboring building where mom-and-pop cultivators were just accosted by uniformed agents from the Department of Cannabis Control. Moments before, they’d entered the room clad in olive green jackets and navy caps, going around to each of the booths — which were given to 27 grows for free as part of the Cup’s new Small Farms Initiative — and insisted that they put away any actual marijuana on display. [Read More @ Rollingstone]