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Humboldt: Life On America's Marijuana Frontier (2013)

by Emily Brady(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1455506761 (ISBN13: 9781455506767)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Grand Central Publishing

review 1: I enjoyed this very much. It's narrative non-fiction, telling the story of the growing biz through a young college woman who grew up there, an older woman who moved there as a idealistic hippy and who was one of the first to start growing pot, a man who is one of two in charge of a huge grow operation, and a cop who lives and works in the area. I love the description of the area, and enjoyed learning more about this business that is one of the biggest economies in Calif. I heard via a Eureka reporter 2 summers ago that the growers didn't want pot to be legalized, which shocked me at the time, but then made perfect sense - it would devastate current prices if it was legal and big legal businesses came in to compete again smaller local growers. (It made me think about JFK's ... morefather, since Joe Kennedy apparently made his money during prohibition.)She mentioned but the book was not focused on the environmental effects of growing, both indoors and outside. Both have very serious negative effects: energy consumption for indoor grows is ridic. Outdoor grows *can* be organic and healthy, like the older woman's small plot, or it can be really bad, with rodenticides, pesticides, land and stream degradation, fertilizer run-off pollution...Some wonder about creating appellations, like zin or pinot, for the pot growing regions, and having tasting rooms. The older hippy woman is trying to create a market for organic sustainably-grown outdoor grown pot, and I came away convinced that this is the best of all possible ways to grow the stuff.
review 2: A humane and eye-opening examination of a community completely embedded in the black market of marijuana, with many consequences on family structure, economics, crime, and the attitudes of those growing up within it. It is clear that Humboldt county will be devastated by legalization, but at the same time, the book makes it clear that legalization is necessary to prevent such communities. This is important because, frankly, Humboldt's community doesn't work well at providing for the flourishing of its inhabitants. less

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