“That [craft cannabis] market will continue to exist, but to be realistic, if a lot of brands are competing for that segment, there’s going to be a lot of winners and losers.” — Robin Goldstein
be denied. Another concern is odor, Harrison says.
some, but not all, in the field. According to a UC Berkeley adjunct professor whose work explores the effects of water management activities on freshwater ecosystems, “our research hasn’t found cannabis to be particularly thirsty relative to other crops,” says Ted Grantham in a 2021 blog post by the Public Policy Institute of California. “Legal outdoor production uses about the same amount of water as a crop like tomatoes,” says Van Butsic, an adjunct fellow at the institute’s Water Policy Center. Harrison says, “We also have Matanzas Creek going through our valley and it’s got five threatened or endangered species in it. When is the water used the most? August and September when the water level is at its lowest, which challenges the creatures living in the creek.” According to the county’s draft environmental impact study released in May, if federally protected wetlands or other waters are present and fill of any state or federally protected wetlands would result from implementation of the project, then a buffer of 100 feet around these features will be required. If the project can’t be redesigned to avoid all federally protected wetlands and other waters, then the application will
“The things you are smelling are terpenes, and there’s one in particular called beta myrcene, and the state considers it to be a carcinogen,” Harrison says. According to a December 2024 newsletter from the Neighborhood Coalition, “Cannabis—An Imminent Threat to Our Bucolic County,” proposed changes to the county’s cannabis ordinance shrinking minimum lot sizes to 5 acres “means the stench from outdoor grows will be unavoidable and intense. …spewing airborne carcinogens into our unprotected neighborhoods and homes.” “It’s a health problem,” Harrison says. As part of the draft environmental impact study, Sonoma County commissioned Trinity Consultants to perform a study of the potential impacts of beta myrcene. Based on the work performed in the study, “which was developed by experts that relied on substantial evidence (i.e., scientific research), emissions of beta myrcene would not be at a concentration high enough to cause the community harms related to pharmacological and other adverse effects (e.g.,
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24 NorthBaybiz
July 2025
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