A theory of geo-social marginalization: A case study of the licensed cannabis industry in California

The licensed cannabis industry represents one of the top five most economically valued agricultural commodities in California, yet farming largely remains on remote, environmentally sensitive, “marginal” lands. Using mixed methods, this paper examines the determinants of this marginalization, their embedded elaboration, and their relation to historical policy regimes. We used Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) to determine the most important predictors of licensed cannabis industry development since the inception of a statewide licensing program in 2018 and to compare the distribution of licensed cannabis to other forms of rural agriculture, including vineyards and pasture, to understand landscape factors and environmental sensitivity of land uses. We found that a county's median income and the extent of traditional (non-cannabis) agriculture, as measured by the proportion of on-farm (non-cannabis) employment, were both negatively associated with its amount of licensed cannabis agriculture. Ethnographic data suggests that cannabis is often excluded from traditional agricultural areas, through formal local-level bans, restrictive zoning, high “prime” farmland values, and cultural exclusions from other powerful resource users. The resulting relegation to “marginal” lands foments conflicts with amenity land users and environmentalists, even as it partly supports “legacy” cultivators whose farms were established under prior policy regimes. Results suggest that cannabis is more likely to be grown under conditions that introduce regulatory hurdles, including farming on steeper slopes, with natural streams onsite, and without access to large groundwater aquifers for irrigation. Our findings suggest that failure to allow licensed cannabis farming in traditional agriculture regions has led to a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein cannabis cultivation is largely relegated to environmentally sensitive areas where cultivation activity has an elevated tendency for environmental impacts.