Hundreds of Humboldt cannabis farmers face a March 31st deadline to clear their cultivation tax tab with the county or lose their permits. This potential extinction event could force as many as 75% of the county’s farms to be suspended or revoked and would have a highly detrimental ripple effect across the regional economy. Local advocates and generational farmers are asking the Board of Supervisors to take bold action to breathe new life into Humboldt County.
When Proposition 64 passed in California in 2016, it handed an inordinate amount of power to the state’s 539 different municipalities to impose their own layer of regulations on top of the flawed law that led to today’s adult-use recreational cannabis market.
This foot-shooting decision to allow every single city council member and county official statewide to inject their opinions of cannabis into local lawmaking came at a great cost, and that bill is coming due very soon for the farmers in Humboldt County.
The clock started ticking as soon as Prop 64 passed.
Officials in Humboldt County obviously “opted in” to allow commercial cannabis activity within their jurisdiction, but when it came to cultivation, ‘Measure S’ was voted into existence, placing a tax of $1 per square foot for outdoor cultivators, $2 per square foot for mixed light growers, and $3 per square foot for indoor ops.
It sure looks like white-collar extortion from the outside, but most tax burdens do. Locally, it was promoted by the county as a way of “protecting your public safety, environment and quality of life”.
Many local growers pursuing a place in the Prop 64 market reluctantly voted for the measure mostly because they saw no way around it and saw similar taxes being levied in places like Santa Barbara to the tune of $10-15 per square foot.
Deeper than that, though, these legacy farmers saw their future tax contributions as a right to exist after a lifetime of operating in secrecy. They also assumed that the tax revenue would funnel directly back into addressing real-world community needs – fixing potholes with pot dollars, that sort of thing.
On top of it all, less than a decade ago these farmers could still fetch $1,000+ per pound, so the whole thing seemed like a win/win/win for cultivators, community, and county bean-counters.
That is no longer the case. As the cost of living continues to rise for all Americans, Humboldt cannabis growers are no different except that they have watched their livelihood lose value year after year.
To their credit, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has recognized the unfavorable-at-best market conditions and has so far been lenient on cultivation tax collection.
In 2022, the Board agreed to temporarily suspend the implementation of Measure S, granting some financial relief to hundreds of struggling growers. In October 2023, they reconvened on the matter and agreed that the taxation would resume in 2024, but at just 10% of the standard rates. This, they hoped, would keep some revenue flowing into county coffers. However, the October 2023 decision also came with an ultimatum – Pay ALL back taxes IN FULL by March 31st, 2025… or else…
Of course, 2024 came and went without a miraculous correction to the Cali cannabis market. Instead, we got news that the state intends to hike up the already egregious cannabis excise tax from 15% up to 19%, but they also could raise the fee for license renewals.
Waiting for the state to help small farmers is not an option.
March 2025 seemed far off in 2023 but it is all but upon us now and not only do these Humboldt farmers need to pony up their reduced-rate amount owed from 2024, but they also have to clear all past debt, some of which dates back as far as 2018.
The county has several options for dealing with the failure of Measure S to protect the quality of life in Humboldt, but it has very little time to decide.
On January 31st of this year, the Humboldt County Growers Alliance sent a letter to the Board requesting that they agendize a discussion on this matter.
“This isn’t just about unpaid taxes—it’s about the future of Humboldt County’s economy, culture, and legacy in cannabis. The Board of Supervisors has an opportunity to craft a policy that ensures long-term viability for small farmers while maintaining fairness for the broader community. We hope they seize it.” – Natalynne DeLapp, Executive Director, HCGA
“This isn’t just about unpaid taxes—it’s about the future of Humboldt County’s economy, culture, and legacy in cannabis. The Board of Supervisors has an opportunity to craft a policy that ensures long-term viability for small farmers while maintaining fairness for the broader community. We hope they seize it.” – Natalynne DeLapp, Executive Director, HCGA
The Humboldt Board of Supervisors consists of five members, each representing a different geographic region of the county. While they have recognized the challenges facing regulated cannabis businesses in the past, the future of Humboldt’s cannabis industry now rests on their willingness to implement fair and reasonable tax relief strategies. Advocates hope that a majority of the Board will take action to prevent widespread farm closures while working toward a long-term, equitable solution that voters can ultimately decide.
Measure S Has Only Harmed Humboldt: How We Got Here
Proposition 64 was approved by California voters in 2016, establishing California’s adult-use recreational cannabis market. Crippling itself right out of the gate, Prop 64 included an “opt-in” clause allowing each of the state’s 58 counties and 482 municipalities to decide whether each would allow licensed commercial cannabis activity in their jurisdiction or not.
To this day, roughly 54% of California’s cities and counties still prohibit any form of licensed cannabis production or sales, even though 69% of the counties in the state voted in favor of Prop 64 in 2016.
With a majority of municipalities “opting out” of Prop 64, even more leverage and power fell into the laps of those that opted in.
You want to play? You’re gonna pay.
What Is At Stake For Humboldt County Cannabis, Culture & Community
Humboldt County has earned its worldwide reputation as the northwest pier of the famed Emerald Triangle and as a fertile zone for cultivating not only the Cannabis plant but the culture at Her roots.
Multigenerational farms, Earth-friendly regenerative cultivation traditions, award-winning and life-changing genetics, the headwaters where cannabis met compassion, and countless stories covering the full spectrum of human emotion all weave the fabric of Humboldt County’s wild-west past.
Measure S, as written, threatens to erase that past along with any hope for the future.
Even today, society is just scratching the surface of the lab-confirmed connections between cannabis consumption and the effective all-natural wellness benefits it provides. What unknown genetics lay in rest somewhere in Humboldt County right now? What ailments might they alleviate? How many lives might be made better by that one seed?
Before Prop 64, global recognition of the quality of the cannabis being produced in Humboldt brought a high demand. But, with just one outdoor crop per year and none of today’s protections from law enforcement, farmers named the price per pound. The cash that flowed into town didn’t just go under the mattress or into jars buried in the yard. It went to the local grocery stores, restaurants, auto mechanics, and hardware stores, and for decades entire communities thrived thanks, in large part, to the cannabis farmers who took all the risk and shared the rewards.
The passage of Prop 64, with its many insurmountable flaws, and the implementation of local tax burdens like Measure S stripped these farms of their ability to produce craft-quality harvests of cannabis in a way that balanced the bottom line financially and their local communities immediately felt the impact.
These same family farms all across Humboldt County still have the power and the passion to restore the region to its rightful reputation as a must-visit destination as well as a source for some of the very best sungrown cannabis on the planet.
All of that hinges on the looming decision regarding Measure S.
Humboldt County simply cannot lose ~75% of its remaining licensed cannabis farms and hope to retain, let alone revive, its position in the California cannabis market. And, as we have painstakingly pointed out, as goes the region’s supply and demand for cannabis so goes the local supply and demand for the “picks and shovels” that keep the cash flowing for entire communities.
There is plenty of room for double or triple the current cultivation licenses, maybe more. Some locals estimate there may have been 10,000-15,000 farms in Humboldt in the Prop 215 days. Today there are roughly a thousand, and three-quarters of those are at risk of losing their licenses at the end of March.
“My survival is contingent on the success of other farms,” says John Casali, owner and operator of Huckleberry Hills Farm in Humboldt County. “It was never about one of us, it is about all of us. Diversity is the key to a healthy market.”
We are asking the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to take action before the March 31st deadline to implement a fair and equitable solution—one that prevents the mass closure of local farms and ensures that Humboldt remains a viable home for future generations of cannabis farmers.
We then ask for the county to take on the burden of drafting a new initiative that repeals the Measure S cannabis cultivation tax and puts it before the voters as soon as possible.
We understand that there needs to be an equitable solution that does not negate the importance or the diligence of the hundreds of farms who are current on all county taxes, but ultimately we ask that there be no more “pay-to-play” cultivation tax in Humboldt County.
“We are not asking the community to give us anything. We are just asking that the county not tax us for a crop that we haven’t grown and may not even make it to market. We are asking to be treated like any other legal industry that is facing a threat,” says Dylan Mattole of Humboldt-based Mattole Valley Sungrown.
Let the world-renowned growers grow! Support your local retail dispensaries and put Humboldt County back on the map for all adventurous cannabis connoisseurs and we can make the Triangle GREEN again.
