Title of Blog: HOW IS LEGAL FARMING GOING IN CALIFORNIA?
One of the biggest issues with California grow ops was the lack of regulation from seed to sale, and not knowing where much of the cannabis being sold was coming from in the state. Being the first state to have medical marijuana, there were tons of production and pipeline issues that needed to be addressed.
Illegal Farming
If you have ever watched the documentary “Murder Mountain” on Netflix, you have seen how the progress from illegal farming and legal farming transformed the Emerald Triangle of California. With the increased costs of testing and regulation, illegal farms could do it cheaper, but with greater risk from not only rogue farmers, but the police as well.
One story I heard, was that in Humboldt they have drones that patrol all of Northern California. A drone in this area found out an old high school friend who had been growing since the early days got visited by the police and asked to remove his whole crop. Luckily, they were agreeable and nice to him, and then told him where he could grow on his property and how much without a license for personal use. Change to legality is a tough road, and a costly one.
Legal Farming
While it does suck that the prices are going up, and the regulations and taxation make it difficult, in the early term (let’s not even get to all the extra packaging requirements, that are terrible for the environment), the greater benefit of knowing what is in your product is a good thing. Many of the smaller farmers in California couldn’t afford the cost of the licensing; however, grow ops and co-ops were created to help reduce the costs to those farmers in the short-term. 
Joey Hoover trims leaves off marijuana plants at the Pot Zero outdoor grow field Friday, Sept. 22, outside Gypsum. Hoover is removing the larger leaves in preparation for removing the flowering bud. (Chris Dillman, Vail Daily)
Over this past summer, Humboldt county stopped with raids with sheriffs as a deterrent, and instead have gone with civil penalties which include fines of $10,000 per day, per violation; along with property liens and forfeitures. While these growing pains can be difficult for most, the negatives of illegal cartels, pesticides in our weed (which California weed was testing high for, no pun intended, before), and better product quality; the costs suck in the mean time!
