Inside the California Weed Industry
Harvest-to-harvest, a photographer’s year-long pot farm embed
Today, Oregon becomes the latest state to sell recreational marijuana. Last week, south of the OR/CA border, one of the biggest pot raids in California history went down. The eradication of 85,000 plants by Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity Sheriff Depts assisted by the DEA wasn’t just about pot though. It was mostly about water. In the drought-stricken Golden State, unscrupulous weed-farmers are illegally damning creeks in order to irrigate massive pot farms.
The unexpected story, with unexpected photos (left), is the latest jenky development in the decades long saga of grey-market grows, mind-bending profits and sporadic enforcements.
The driving forces in the back-and-forth about pot production in California change with each season. Five years ago, no one was talking about water. Everyone feared big business. In 2010, California voters were deciding whether or not to regulate the marijuana industry. Small-holding pot farmers feared regulation would spell the end for their livelihoods as corporations moved in on the lucrative industry.
Also in 2010, photographer H. Lee was living on a pot farm in the heart of the Emerald Triangle. Now is a good moment to revisit Lee’s pioneering work which show us, from the inside, the sheds, the plants, the people and the infrastructure of a hardworking and vigilant community.
Rare access such as Lee’s makes these photos unique — almost timeless — and they show us exactly what is at stake and why so many political and economic battles have overlapped, rumbled on, and do so still.
H. Lee is an alias. Promising subjects their anonymity by proxy of her own just made things easier.
“I gave my word to the people I photographed — whether I shot their faces, body parts, plants or farms — that I would use a pseudonym when presenting the work,” says Lee. “I only photographed those who were willing to be photographed.”
In March 2010, Proposition 19 (The Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Act) gained enough signatures to qualify for the California state ballot. A ‘Yes’ vote would formalize, regulate and tax the industry which up until that point was composed of small to midsize farms. Most small-holding pot-growers feared that any short-terms gains or profits would be quickly replaced by long-term loses to larger corporate-backed grow operations. In a capitalist grab, usually the biggest capitalist wins. Weed-growers were anxious.
Lee, by 2010, had been visiting a pot farm on-and-off for eight years. She’d always just helped out but never photographed — pointing a camera at her grower friends was wrought with awkward potential. But Prop 19 was a game changer, potentially spelling the end for the increasingly embattled local grow operations. Lee reacted to the change in mood. You can’t photograph something if it has disappeared.
“Suddenly, it made sense to start documenting,” says Lee. “I’m a storyteller, and felt, now more than ever, it’s time for this hidden tale to be told in images, at the very least.”
Lee met old-timers building retirements, seasonal workers, former dot-com-ers with seed money, and nouveau back-to-the-landers. “People with a love of weed, farming, money or all three,” she says. Horticulturists and gun-carrying libertarians, too, organized against the passage of Prop 19. The polls said it could go either way. 18 million people use marijuana in a given year and a good number of them in California. The survival of the industry as Lee photographed it depended upon how people envisioned the control of the industry to pan out after passage. The against camp argued it’s better for folks to by a barely-illegal ounce from a sustainable farmer than to buy legal bud from a subsidiary of a big tobacco company.
The legalization of marijuana in Colorado (Amendment 64, Nov. 2012) and Washington (Initiative 502) are seen as watershed moments. Because they passed. But in 2010, it is worth remembering, the California ballot asked more Americans at the polls than ever before ever to see through the legalization of pot, or not.
In November, 2010, Prop 19 was voted down.
Lee’s book Grassland chronicles an entire year on the farm from harvest to harvest. She helping with growing, harvesting, managing trimmers, weighing, bagging, “a little of everything,” she says.
“There is a lot of puffing, but not every grower or trimmer I met smokes.” — H. Lee.
For someone who doesn’t smoke pot, the experience was eye opening. She watched as mold wiped out thousands of dollars worth of product. Giant pickle barrels deep in the woods full of stored weed and the fact that shotguns were unexpected as were her interactions with workers; she read trashy magazines for hours to trimmers.
“I was totally ignorant to the world of pot farming. It took some time for my outsider eyes to adjust to see what was all around me — behind locked gates and camouflaged cabins, past generators and barking dogs, protective firearms and diesel trucks — but also to gain the trust of the community,” says Lee. “This is an extremely large industry with both mom-and-pop farms and those with massive production. I was privy to a tiny slice of it all.”
The experience was transformational. Farmers schooled Lee in the medical properties of the plant and she learnt about the conniving messaging of big pharmaceutical companies. She documented leaves that fan like palm fronds, armfuls of dank bud, purple flecks and sheds full to bursting with plants. While many of the pictures look idyllic, it’s probably just the light. Pot-growing is pure business. Prices used to be higher and supply lower.
“Growers have had to double, triple their production in order to cash in the way they once did,” says Lee. “This once-furtive farming community is coming out of its greenhouses, building bigger ones and growing giant plants in full sun, less fearful of the hum of helicopters, more exposed and confident than ever before.”
Marijuana has been legal in California for medicinal purposes, since 1996. The Emerald Triangle, comprised of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity Counties in Northern California, is the largest cannabis growing region in the United States. It’s practically a monoculture up there and just because Prop 19 didn’t pass it doesn’t mean the problem of competition has disappeared. Pot-growing is precarious.
“A reliance on one crop is always risky, if marijuana is fully legalized and large operations supplying weed to major corporations become the norm, smaller operations may get squeezed out,” says Lee. “But isn’t that the story of agriculture in America?”
Time will tell if regulation allows large multinationals to flex their green-fingers. Social attitudes toward bong rips continue to change. The War On Drugs is roundly seen failed policy that overstepped common sense. Fewer and fewer people are likely harsh your buzz with a disapproving look.
California growers till have routine Federal sting operations to deal with. Regulation in Colorado means Feds are focusing on California and businesses that may be front for bigger illegal operations.
From every angle, Lee saw too many pressures in the industry. While she felt privileged to document skilled and committed pot farmers she never would want to take their place.
“I am a risk-taker, but if I grew pot, I’d never sleep! Growing is one thing, selling is another story,” she says. “I do appreciate the marijuana plant now, but I’d rather grow tomatoes.”
All images and captions: H. Lee (except Humboldt Co. Sheriff image of bladder).
Grassland is published by Kehrer Verlag.
Follow the project on Facebook, Twitter, and at the dedicated Grassland website.
