First Days in Humboldt and Mendocino: The People Behind the Plant

There appear to be seasons up here.

Coming from Southern California, where tank tops are practically year-round attire, I’m enjoying the cooler air, the old buildings and murals in Eureka, and seeing people dressed for fall. But the drive north has offered plenty to think about beyond the scenery.

Through Sonoma and Mendocino, signs invite you to visit wineries and tasting rooms. There’s a whole economy built around welcoming people to experience what grows there.

I kept thinking about the cannabis farmers—and how differently their communities are allowed to welcome visitors.

Then there are the empty storefronts.

We visited Garberville and Redway, towns where cannabis helped sustain the local economy for decades. What struck me was how quiet they felt. I’ve been seeing empty buildings in Long Beach and Los Angeles, too. Different places, familiar questions about what it costs to stay open and how much longer people can manage it.

Here, those questions carry the weight of a plant criminalized for generations, followed by a legal market that many of the people who built this culture are struggling to survive in.

Humboldt and Mendocino: Listening at Humboldt Nation

I’ve been spending time at Humboldt Nation’s dispensary and lounge, sitting down with locals and hearing about life before and after Prop 64.

The lounge offers something you don’t get from a quick transaction: time. Time to meet someone, hear their history, and understand how the changes in this industry have affected their family.

These conversations reach well beyond the farms. When growers lose their income, the businesses they spend it with lose income, too. You don’t have to grow, sell, or even consume cannabis for your job to depend on the local economy it supported.

Some people came here because of the plant. Others have been here for generations. They’ve built businesses, raised families, and supported their neighbors. When we talk about whether the cannabis industry survives, these are the people we’re talking about.

How Do People Find a Business They Don’t Know Exists?

Humboldt Nation also brings the marketing problem into focus. It’s a dispensary and a place for adults to gather, but reaching the surrounding community isn’t as simple as printing flyers and inviting everyone over.

California requires cannabis advertising in print and other covered media to reach an audience reasonably expected to be at least 71.6% age 21 or older, supported by reliable, current audience data. Direct advertising has an additional age-verification requirement. A general local audience isn’t automatically an eligible one.

After passing all those invitations to wineries, the contrast is hard to miss. Here’s a local business with a space for community, facing barriers to letting that community know it exists.

How do you build a sustainable business if people don’t know you’re there?

Meeting Pebbles Trippet

One of the highlights so far was meeting Pebbles Trippet at Humboldt Nation. A longtime Northern California cannabis activist, Pebbles found relief from lifelong migraines through cannabis and made legalization a central focus of her advocacy in the early 1970s.

Her 1997 appellate case, People v. Trippet, helped establish that medical cannabis protections could extend to transportation when the amount and circumstances were reasonably related to a patient’s medical needs. Her personal fight helped shape protections for other patients.

We also attended BOLD+FEST at the Eureka Theater, where the lineup included Laura Costa’s film about Pebbles. Meeting her and seeing her story on screen connected the history of that fight with the conversations happening around me today.

Keeping the People in the Picture

Small farms across America are struggling, and people everywhere are finding ways to work with less. I think about the home kitchens and smaller businesses emerging when a full restaurant or storefront becomes unaffordable. People are doing what they can to keep earning a living.

Here, that struggle is compounded by the legacy of prohibition and the restrictions of the market that replaced it.

Legalization should have created a path for these communities to thrive. The growers, shop owners, workers, families, and advocates who built their lives here should have a future in the industry they helped create.

Because when a farm can no longer survive, the loss doesn’t stop at the property line. It reaches the shops, restaurants, and other businesses that depend on the people who work there.

These communities helped make weed famous. Shouldn’t they get to do more than struggle to stay? Shouldn’t they get to thrive?

And the flower itself deserves more attention. Sungrown is all I’ve bought since arriving. It’s refreshing to have so many options, and it highlights how few are available in Southern California shops. More on that soon.