What is the legal situation of cannabis in California?

This year the use of cannabis for leisure has been legalised. Medical use has been legal since the 1980s or 1990s. The truth is that the best thing to guarantee medical consumption was to go to a private doctor and ask for the card, saying that it hurt you. All paid, of course. The price of the card was 100 dollars and with it you could consume it. Yes, there was a huge black market. Many families lived thanks to cannabis, but without regularizing: they had their house on the mountain and there several marijuana plants, arguing that they were for them.

Of course, not for their use, they needed many workers to bleach cannabis for at least two months. It was their trade. Now, permits and licences are necessary and must be purchased. As a result, a large number of people have been mortgaged. Perhaps after hundreds of thousands of euros of investment, they have realised that there are many people producing the same product. Here's what happened in the day with the brick in California. Marijuana has become the basis of the economy in several regions.

Those who have worked on it from the very beginning know how to do it to survive, but many others are sinking. Salaries are also coming down. When I was for the first time in the United States, I earned 200 dollars for producing a single pound (454 grams), now they pay 125 dollars. People think it's a bargain, but it's not.

Is it just legal to plant marijuana in California?

Yes, each state decides. However, if the Federal Government introduces the DEA agency, everything can be lost. There is great economic interest in lobbies. For example, this year helicopters have already begun to take photos and send images to their owners. They are threatened to regularize the state of their plants, if not, they are fined. Many have left for that and others follow it. Until the helicopter appeared, of course.

In any case, every county in California has its own laws, and the most advanced is Humbolt. In general, the owners have more than they can.

How is this distributed in the shops?

You have to get a permit to transport a certain amount of marijuana to bring it to the point of sale. Suppose it serves to move 2 kilos. However, producers generally hire another person and perhaps carry 40 kilos.

In any case, all of this is being sought to reduce further and further. They want to put a label on each plant to know where it's come from and where its buds are finished. They want to draw.

Are you going to cut marijuana this year?

I don't know. I do not see that very clear. I wish it were legal here, but it does not seem that the government is going to take such a decision.

How many times have you been to California?

I've been 3 years in a row. I found out about this because I had traveled to Mexico. I saw people who lived well, working very little. I asked and they told me that they were going to California to cut hemp. In Mexico, they lived with the money they earned in the United States, because that takes a little bit of money.

I found out about it in 2006 and in 2015 I had to make money to go there. I had nothing, and some friends called me to tell me there was a lot to do.

What was the experience like?

I was looking for a job all month long. In California, you can't camp everywhere, because the sheriff kicks you out. I slept in river courses, I asked for work, I survived as I could -- so I was all month. I was presented with the opportunity to work at the time of surrender. In rural supermarkets it is easy to find between 50 and 60 hippie, and all of them want to work in cannabis cutting.

In addition, the situation in the villages is not the same. In some places you have a cottage for you with heating and in others you are in the street. I was lucky enough to be left with the caravan. Some of my friends have been camping in the snow.

What would you praise about the work?

You live many difficult times and it's hard. I have been for a maximum of 3 months in a row. You can spend the whole year there, because there's work. However, as you enter the United States with a tourist permit, it is not desirable that the period of 3 months be exceeded.

And do you work in black?

Yes, of course. You don't have a right. In some households meals are made on their own and in others you pay them, for example. You get kicked off from one day to the next, when the work is over.

There are cases where you don't pay, and you have to keep in mind that Northern California is very close to Oregon; people are ugly. All of a sudden, maybe with the gun in your hands, the boss tells you that you have to abandon your possession. More than one has gone unpaid.

I know that there have been robberies in some villages, that the workers have killed their owner to get 200 kilos of marijuana... There are shootings, and depending on where you go in, it can be dangerous. My case has not been so. I've been working with a normal family.

Yes, in the mountains there are crazy people and there are mafias. New York or other people on the coast. They make a financial investment to plant and then they transport marijuana. In some cases using UPS.

What is the work itself?

The usual thing is to cut and peel the buds, that is, to remove everything that is not smoked, the leaves, the sticks. This means that he's sitting for 12 or 15 hours cutting marijuana to leave a nice bump. Depending on the quality of marijuana, you can cut a larger or smaller number of buds in the same period of time.

For example, if cannabis is of quality, you can bleach 2 pounds in a day. On the contrary, if it is bad, it will hardly be able to make a pound in 12 hours. Another job may be planting or taking care of the farmhouse. Or doing gardening work.

On the one hand, fixing the buds is a very free job, you organize it and you decide. After all, they pay according to what they have done. In most of the places I've known the schedule was free.

In recent times, measures on clean-up have been stepped up. Wear gloves. In fact, the ecoli bacterium has ever appeared in the tests, due to the fat from the chips, as people worked during lunch.

It's terrible for the head. You stay for 12 hours without moving and you think constantly. All of us who have worked on this have come to the conclusion that you are making a very intense reflection.

Is it profitable to go to California to work?

If you're an adventurer, you might be fine, but right now I don't recommend it to anyone. There are more and more people to do the same work, and only people count how much money they have earned and not the deficiencies they have suffered.

It should be noted that those who don't plant marijuana don't like people from outside. California is a very contrasting land. I've been insulted when I've been looking for a job, and I've met great people, but you have to find it.

There are two worlds in California: Wallmart (shopping malls) or ecological option. People who grow marijuana like the ecological, both in the food and in the cultivation of cannabis. They don't use animals or chemicals, they use compost.

So people have to be clear that not all of California is Hollywood, and I've seen more homeless people there than anywhere else. It should also be mentioned that then you have to take money out of the United States, and you can't take more than 10,000 dollars.

This interview was posted by Aiaraldea and we brought it to ARGIA thanks to the CC-by-sa license.