The news is good or bad, depending on how you feel about marijuana. According to the latest data gathered and posted online by New Frontier, the best of the cannabis research groups, only about 1 percent of California marijuana growers and manufacturers have received permits.
That means growers are staying in the black market, where they have been for years, if not decades. The failure to sign up for the program is no big surprise. Growers and manufacturers have made it clear for the last 18 months or so that they weren’t going to fill out the forms and abide by the rules.
What should be surprising to local citizens is that Sonoma County is not high on the list of California counties where permits have been issued. Only 41 have been handed out in Sonoma, the same number for Santa Cruz. Permits are for both cultivation and manufacturing.
Humboldt and Mendocino are the two counties in the lead. Humboldt has issued 163 permits and Mendocino 124. San Bernardino with 52 and Riverside with 95 are both ahead of Sonoma. Napa has issued no permits, Marin one. The total number of permits in the entire state adds up to 1,213.
Still, there is more marijuana around than every before, with prices on the black market holding steady at about $1,000 a pound, and with cultivators holding product back in hopes that the price will rise. Then too, more than ever before, Sonoma marijuana is shipped out of the county and clear across the country where it fetches two and three times as much as it fetches locally.
Here as elsewhere, more seniors are turning to marijuana. Strains rich in CBD are popular. They do not have the psychoactive effects (the “high” or “stoned” feeling) that THC provides, though medical evidence suggests that they do have analgesic, anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety properties. Boomers who once smoked to get high are now popping cannabis pills to relieve aches and pains. Now, more than ever before we seem to be a nation of addicts.
