While cannabis retail and cultivation have recently expanded in southern California, a combination of environmental, right-to-privacy, and other woes have beset northern California cannabis communities. Earlier this month, the City of Santee in the County of San Diego approved four cannabis retail shops for permits after a four-phase vetting process that began last October. Also this month, cannabis research in southern California expanded when the City of San Diego Police Department secured a $428,000 grant from California Highway Patrol, using the state’s Cannabis Tax Fund, to acquire specialized equipment, including improved tools for detecting and assessing drug-impaired drivers (even as many of the current roadside tests for marijuana impairment have been called “pseudoscientific” recently). A few weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Luis Obispo, after a contentious hearing, voted to move a cannabis farm forward in the permitting process, and earlier this month the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation reported that as of May 2025, ninety percent (90%) of temporary approvals for retail storefront licenses have transitioned into annual licenses. This momentum in southern California sits in stark contrast to the situations facing some communities in northern California’s cannabis economy. On July 14, the Board of Supervisors for the County of Siskiyou, on California’s northern border, unanimously declared a local emergency due to the pervasive use of illegal, foreign-labeled pesticide fumigants at illicit cannabis cultivation sites throughout the unincorporated areas of the county. In Sonoma County, a lawsuit recently filed by the ACLU has alleged significant violations of privacy rights related to the local government’s use of drones to detect violations of cannabis laws. And last week, Cresco Labs, an Illinois-based multistate cannabis operator, announced it will exit the California market, further destabilizing the already embattered cannabis economy in this area of northern California. Meanwhile, the County of Humboldt (where the Planning & Building Department wants you to know they do not do cannabis enforcement with drones) continues to suffer environmental damage from illicit operators like those enforced against last month and this month as well, contributing further to the harm this region in particular has suffered.
