WILLITS, CA., 11/11/26 — On Saturday, Nov. 14, from 3 to 5 p.m., the Mendocino County Museum in Willits will host a panel discussion called “Richard Spills the Tea,” featuring Richard Jergenson, founder of the Cannabis Counterculture Museum and Archive. He will be joined by a panel of leaders in the cannabis industry to explore the plant’s past, present, and future in the Golden State. Panelists include Genine Coleman, CEO of Legacy Cannabis Genetics; Casey O’Neill, organic farmer and third generation homesteader; Wendy Read, herbalist, biochemist, and author; and moderator Ann Waters, herbalist.
Cannabis sativa has many different meanings for people. Its roots are entangled with American history, dating back to the 17th century, when hemp was grown for rope and clothing. In the 1930s and onward, it was portrayed as an evil weed, a drug that corrupted youth. Others see it as a “plant ally,” a term used by Indigenous healers who employ psychoactive entheogens to shift consciousness. Others view it merely as entertainment or an invitation to snack.
“We caught a wave,” cannabis historian, entrepreneur, and longtime Willits resident Richard Jergenson says. Born in a Willits-size town in Iowa and raised in Colorado, Jergenson seemed to have a knack to show up at the right place at the right time. Although of draft age, as the conflict in Vietnam was raging, his lottery number was high, and he was never called up. After migrating to Berkeley in 1971, Jergenson and his two older brothers formed a mail-order business called Proto Pipe, “the Swiss Army knife of pipes,” invented by his brother Phil. The business took off quickly, as marijuana use was increasing. The pipe itself and its makers endured hardships for manufacturing “paraphernalia.”
Jergenson and his family realized that, since they ran a mail-order business, they could move somewhere where land was cheap. Together they pooled money, purchased 40 acres outside Willits for $12,000, found a warehouse in town, and made the move from Berkeley. The business continued to expand, as growers learned more about plant genetics and cultivated sensemilla, unpollinated female plants. The area’s rich soil and moderate weather, combined with its countercultural proclivities, earned it and neighboring Humboldt and Trinity counties the moniker “Emerald Triangle.”
After taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan ushered in a “Just Say No” campaign against drugs. As in previous eras, marijuana was conflated with more harmful substances such as cocaine and heroin, causing draconian policies and policing to be enacted. CAMP, or the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, invaded the Triangle. But the growers weren’t daunted; they learned how to disguise plants in manzanitas and cultivate plants indoors, using grow lights. Jergenson says, “It spawned a whole new technology of indoor cultivation.”
The Emerald Triangle’s next chapter began in 1996, when Proposition 215, a statewide referendum, enacted legislation that allowed medical marijuana dispensaries and the cultivation of a small number of plants. AIDS patients, and those with other forms of cancer, found their symptoms alleviated by cannabis. The price of the plant began to skyrocket. Jergenson watched as it went up to $1000 a pound, and then zoomed up to as much as $5000.
This ushered in an era called “the green rush,” as people eager for profits poured in, and youthful idealism leaked away. “The bubble burst because greed came in,” Jergenson commented. “It brought in bad players. The mom and pop operations got superseded.” Massive hoop greenhouses went up; toxins leaked into the soil; growers siphoned water off from their neighbors, exploited workers and killed wildlife.
For better or worse, it’s undeniable that marijuana cultivation brought seismic changes to Mendocino County in the last half-century. Technological, cultural, economic, and even spiritual changes transformed people and places. Transformative movements are the push toward economic localization, sometimes called “bioregionalism”; the “back to the land” movement of the ‘70s, many of whose adherents settled in Mendocino County; the rapid growth of solar power technology; the inception of the playful and practical DIY or “Maker” lifestyle.
Much of this was driven by the Baby Boomer and succeeding generations who wanted to create a reality outside the mainstream. While the inland towns of Willits and Ukiah looked like sleepy little country towns to outsiders, they both were hotbeds of innovation. Willits hosted the nation’s first solar expo and rally in 1990. Solar power’s development was spurred partly because cannabis growers often found themselves on raw land and needed alternative power. Jergenson notes: “Locations have a lot to do with development of technologies.”
The 2020s brought the cannabis story to its current culmination. California governor Gavin Newsom created the Department of Cannabis Control, bringing its cultivation and consumption to full legal status. The cartels, with their large grows, continued on their own, ignoring regulations, but small growers, many of whom have countercultural roots, found themselves facing the daunting complexities of a newly established bureaucracy. The price of marijuana plummeted to a few hundred dollars a pound. “We have come full circle,” Jergenson notes, as new and hopeful generations grapple with growing a legalized crop. “The best way to predict the future is to invent the future; that’s what’s next.”
“Richard Spills the Tea” is sponsored in part by the Grace Hudson Museum, which currently is showing an exhibition on the Greater Ukiah Valley: Deep Valley: People, Places, Memory. Between the two museums—Grace Hudson in Ukiah and the County Museum in Willits—visitors can get an excellent perspective on the history and culture of these two inland towns.
The Mendocino County Museum, located at 400 E Commercial Street in Willits, is currently showing Behind the Redwood Curtain: Cannabis in California, curated in partnership with Exhibit Envoy. The panel program, on Saturday, Nov. 14 from 3 to 5 p.m., is free, though donations are welcome.
