The Grueling But Lucrative Life of a Nomadic Marijuana Trimmer

In the current political environment, Marijuana is a hotly debated topic. Regardless of which side of the aisle you sit on, it is hard to argue that the marijuana industry is booming. Legal marijuana sales hit a whopping $7 billion in 2016 and projected to hit $20 billion by 2021. This is a growth rate of 25% annually and according to Forbes, this is a faster growth rate than the dot.com bubble.

Support for legalization among US citizens is at an all time high. Twenty-nine states and D.C. have adopted laws legalizing marijuana in some form. Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Alaska, Maine, and Massachusetts have all legalized recreational use. The increased tax revenue has already been used to fund infrastructure, education, and other initiatives. Canada, with support from Justin Trudeau has introduced legislation that if passed will make it the first industrialized nation to legalize marijuana use at the federal level.

In the U.S, marijuana remains federally illegal. Having one foot in the legal territory and one foot out creates a difficult terrain to navigate for people in the marijuana industry. Many marijuana farm workers are undocumented migrants from Mexico and South America. However, there is also a large portion that are young Americans craving a nomadic lifestyle and the ability to make a lot of cash quickly.

Laysea is the latter.

The Road to Humbolt County

Laysea grew up in a small town on the beach in Florida. After graduation, she didn’t know what she wanted to do, so she worked three jobs to save enough money for an epic trip. She spent two months in California and one month in Bali.

After such an awesome adventure, she knew she couldn’t go back to the grind and needed to figure out a way to keep traveling. She bought a 1983 Volkswagen Van and immediately hit the road.

She spent time traveling the country. Visiting mountains, deserts, and finally ending up in California once again. But eventually she needed to find work. People she met through the yoga community told her, “go trim pot”.

“I was thinking, what does that even mean? You always see Marijuana come as a flower and never picture it as a plant that needs to be manicured and taken care of properly to be smokeable”. However, to make it suitable for sale, the leaves must be trimmed off of the marijuana buds.

To find work, Laysea ended up on a farm in Humbolt County, California. It is a rural area 300 miles north of San Francisco and considered the heartland of high-grade marijuana farming. This region provides marijuana (legally and illegally) to the majority of the United States. Each season, the “trimigrants” (a name given by locals to migrant marijuana workers) flood the county looking for work.

Trim Scene

The farm had no cell service, barely anyone on the farm spoke English, and she had no idea how to trim marijuana. “They handed me scissors and a big bag of weed and told me to prepare it,” she said.

Finding a trimming job is often about who you know in the industry. The community is small and growers only want to work with people they can trust. Working extremely long hours, with little break, the job is physically and mentally grueling. “It’s hard on the body and the mind. Physically you are sitting in a chair for 17 hours a day. It takes a very stable person to do that,” she said. Also, unless you have a van like Laysea, trimmers usually live in tents and in the rainy season, farms turn into giant mud pits.

However, for those looking to make quick cash (often undocumented), it is quite lucrative. Trimmers make about $200 per pound of trimmed marijuana. According to Laysea, she can trim one pound before lunch-time and can often make up to $700 per day. These “trim-scenes” can last for over a month towards the end of each season.

Full-term season is from August to October and light deprivation season (called “light-dep”) is from March to July. Depriving the plants of light tricks them into flowering early. Then growers flip the crop so they have plants that will be ready for full term; the cycle continues.

After years of trimming, Laysea is now working with growers to take care of the plants during the grow season. It is part science, part art and working with experienced growers is as good as a horticulture apprenticeship. There are many different strains that require varying maintenance and care so it requires a deep knowledge and understanding. “I’ve known people who have trimmed for years and have never actually worked with a marijuana plant,” she said.

The Money’s In the Black Market

With the knowledge of a grower, it is much easier for Laysea to find jobs. She now spends most of her time on a legal operation in Humbolt County, but finds temporary work up and down the coast of California in both legal and illegal indoor operations.

Becoming a legal operation is a massive process. The farm she currently works on has sold to medical patients and dispensaries for decades. Each plant is bar-coded and documentation is submitted to the government. The government only allows a certain amount of square footage allotted to growing and limits the number of plants. Of course this is difficult to regulate and growers try to squeeze in as many plants as they can in each area.

Their operation is waiting for approval to build 25 new greenhouses holding about 7,000 plants. “That’s a lot of marijuana,” she said. “Our last place had about seven greenhouses and that yielded a few thousand pounds; this is obviously more than double.”

Since the legal industry remains highly regulated, the money is still in the black market. The government limits owners by how much they can legally sell, but the rest is sold illegally. “A lot of it goes to dispensaries for $1,500 to $1,700 per pound depending on the strain, but most of the time it goes for more money on the streets,” said Laysea.

Legal Gray Area

This life often requires people to skate in the gray area of the law. Even with legalization at the state level, marijuana remains federally illegal. “In the past years, I’ve worked on illegal farms and when you hear a chopper fly overhead you have to put everything inside and cover it up.” If the helicopter circles, usually that means within the next 24 hours the operation is raided.

Last summer, Laysea went to trim on a friend’s new operation. The farm was approved to legally grow marijuana. However, they had not yet received the approval paperwork. The growers decided to plant and harvest the crop anyway.

On the second day of trimming, the police raided the property with a ten car convoy. All the workers, including Laysea, scrambled into the woods as the convoy made its way down the long dirt driveway to the farm. After running for 30 to 45 minutes, they stopped and hid for seven hours before returning. According to Laysea, for their own safety, officers rarely chase workers into the woods.

By the time they returned, the police had shredded all the product and destroyed the structures. They also smashed the car windows and took the farm’s generator which is the size of a van and their only source of power.

Future Business of Marijuana

With increased legalization and regulation, the future of the marijuana industry looks much different. Workers that once relied on large amounts of quick, undocumented cash will be limited to standard working hours and claiming income to the government. Farms will be forced to hire more help to complete the same amount of work and the industry may no longer be appealing to the transient workers that currently fill those roles. Marijuana prices will continue to drop as they have in the last few years.

However, workers in the marijuana industry (especially women) are often subject to abuse with little recourse. Government regulation will hold the industry to higher standards and practices.

“Things are going to change a lot as far as money and the business as a whole,” said Laysea. “It’s going to be more difficult, but it’s a good thing because [with regulation] you know you’re getting an organic product and the workers will be taken care of.”

Not All Pot Heads

It is easy to label people like Laysea that work in a controversial industry like marijuana. Are they criminals, potheads, or just hard-working people trying to make a better future for themselves? As in any industry, I’m sure there are all three.

Although she doesn’t smoke marijuana habitually, she sees nothing wrong with those who do. “I know a lot of people who are total potheads and want to go work on marijuana farms. But I think that’s the same thing as saying, ‘I love numbers, I want to go work in an office’”.

Living in her van, Laysea travels where she wants and lives the simple life in hopes of one day opening her own yoga studio. “I feel like I’m pretty successful for my age and how much money I have in the bank,” she said. “This is conventional to me. Being happy, having enough money to provide for myself, and provide work for my friends and family is the only thing I want and need.”

For more stories like this, visit www.theunconventionalist.com! You can follow Laysea’s adventures on her Instagram page at @gypsealaysea. I hope you enjoyed this story and if you did, please share. Comment below or email me at editor@theunconventionalist.com to let me know what you think!