The culture of the Emerald Triangle is changing significantly as some people go legit and the black market price is reaching a low that many people are quitting. Theft and petty crime is up in small towns. Lots of small time junkies/methheads used to be able to get by with small grow, that would supply enough cash to get high for the year. Maybe a trespass/guerilla grow while they're homeless. Now that garbage weed is barely worth 500/lb if they're lucky. So they're stealing more now.
Lots of small growers, people who used to make a reasonable middle class living on having a small garden, aren't making enough to get by anymore. They weren't really growing enough (or have a good location) to go legal, but they don't necessarily have the skills or abilities to get a real job. Not that I have overwhelming sympathy, but it's creating a problems for communities, the state, etc.
It's having a major effect on the local communities as a lot of these people were not the best with money, so they allowed their costs to be much higher than need be. But all that money went to the local community--grow stores, organic food stores, etc etc. Now local retail is down in a major way, since a lot of the legal farms can't afford to shop in those places either (and they don't have to hide), so they can order direct from wholesalers or buy on Amazon, etc. Really turning a lot of small towns on their heads. And not just in the far north, lots of little pockets all over the state, but nowhere is so dependent on cannabis as the Emerald Triangle. And the people who aren't involved in cannabis directly are just beginning to realize it, how much income the growing community brought in without being ostentatious about it.
