Marijuana growers upend hard-luck California town

[bemildred]

Reporting from Hayfork, Calif. — Education has long been preached as a way to keep kids away from drugs. It's the walk to school that has Supt. Tom Barnett worried.

This hardscrabble Northern California town has become a hotbed for medical marijuana farming. Kids stroll much of the year past pungent plants flourishing in gardens and alleys. The red-and-black clad Timberjacks football team moved its halftime huddle on a recent Friday night to avoid the odor of marijuana smoke wafting over the gridiron from nearby houses. Some students talk openly of farming pot after graduation, about the only opportunity in this depressed timber town.

"It's not a subculture here," said Barnett, who heads the Mountain Valley Unified School District. "Marijuana is drying in their houses. It's falling out of their pockets."

Los Angeles isn't the only place struggling with repercussions unleashed by its permissive medical marijuana laws. Here in Trinity County, cannabis cultivation is upending the rural culture and economy of one of the state's most hard-luck regions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fi-dope-county1-2009nov01,0,6540031.story

[Le Taz Hot]

1. Pot will absolutely be part of the upcoming

underground economy. There's too much of a demand to ignore the profit potential, regardless of legality.

[Xithras]

4. Yes, but it may not help much.

Supply and demand. The more people grow it, the less it's worth on the open market. If one guy is selling pot to the people in his neighborhood, he can make a decent living at it. If 40 people are trying to sell to that same neighorhood, competition is going to kill profit for anyone but the biggest volume sellers.

[XemaSab]

2. Pot has been 90% of the economy in Hayfork for about 40 years

:P

[bemildred]

3. Hmmm. That's about when the lumber business tanked and died, isn't it? nt

[Greyskye]

5. I know a person who works their ass off 12+ hours a day...

...but has to grow and sell to friends in order to make the bills.

[montanto]

6. More false cause bullshit

from the LA Times.