The Legal Green Rush: New California Agricultural Geographies in Commercial Cannabis Cultivation

Abstract

Marijuana has been given many names that connote an underground existence, but rarely been identified as an agricultural crop. California joins a growing number of states to decriminalize adult (recreational) use of cannabis over twenty years after passing California Proposition 215 which decriminalized medical use of marijuana. Illegality kept economic impacts of cannabis agriculture in the shadows; 2008 conservative estimates for California total $20 billion in wholesale value. If, as suggested by California Assemblyman Jim Wood, cannabis is “going to be treated as an agricultural product,” a critical examination of cannabis as agriculture is needed. This research investigates who cannabis cultivators were before legality and where they were located; likewise it explores who are the potential new cannabis cultivators entering the industry. Data indicate the largest concentration of interest in cannabis cultivation is in southern California and that a patchwork of legislation may severely inhibit large-scale cannabis cultivation in regions like the Central Valley.