How licensing unique cannabis strains could revolutionize industry and promote tourism

ALMOST EVERYONE IN the Emerald Triangle remembers the free-spirited days of the back-to-the-land movement in the 1960s and ’70s. People from all over California and other parts of the U.S. flocked to Northern California to live a homestead life in the country. Folks moved here to raise livestock, grow their own food, live off the land, and often, grow high-quality outdoor weed.

However, the cannabis industry has changed drastically over the past 60-plus years. Cannabis products now resemble everything else that is mass-produced. Consumers expect similar results from heavily marketed varieties grown indoors under lights, dried artificially and processed by machines. The sun-drenched organic cannabis that once defined the market, whose effects varied depending on its genetics, is now either unsaleable or priced so low that hopeful growers can’t afford to pay a trimmer to hand-manicure it.