TIME

The Golden State’s big green bet

California is poised to legalize marijuana, potentially transforming the global pot trade. But an unlikely group isn’t partaking
In the Emerald Triangle, growers who have spent generations in the shadows are worried that they’ll be driven out of a legal industry

INSIDE THE BIGFOOT GOLF and Country Club on a cool evening in October, Isaiah O’Donnell, a second-generation cannabis farmer, is making a case that he hopes will get out before Election Day. “As a kid I was taught you don’t say what you do, you don’t drive a fancy vehicle. You just hide, you deny,” he says. “Now we’re coming out . . . But I’m scared if the shelf space is not there for these small farmers who are moving through this process that they will go back underground.”

The other marijuana growers sitting around O’Donnell nod, unified in one of

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