Let me tell you an underdog story, set in the near future.
If New Mexico plays its cards right, I strongly believe our state can carve out an identity as home to high-quality herb, and claim a seat at the table of a globalized cannabis industry.
Without a carefully executed strategy–one that will require collaboration between industry players and policymakers–I expect to see the New Mexico cannabis industry suffer catastrophic fallout from at least three inevitable market crashes in my lifetime. The local industry is currently moving through the first crash, and I see enormous opportunity for us to make this pressure into diamonds. We have a chance to turn the accelerated pace at which New Mexico is experiencing this crash into a competitive advantage. The damage caused by the next two waves of market collapse could be mitigated by learning from the successes of our state’s current agriculture industry, as well as that of agricultural regions across the globe that have retained their value and withstood centuries of commodification.
This beautiful state is my home. I was born and raised here, I have spent most of my life here–aside from a stint cutting my teeth in the Oregon cannabis industry–and I worry a lot about our future. When it comes to cultivating cannabis, fortunately, New Mexico has a strong foundation that can support a beautiful and abundant future across the state.
At the core of this hopefulness is the land itself, and the stewards who care deeply for it. Ours is a geographically vast state, bathed in sunshine, and home to a tapestry of climates and distinct regions all with unique growing characteristics. Cannabis is a notoriously light-hungry plant–as a species it can withstand extreme light intensity, thriving in high-light environments that would cook more delicate species to a crisp. This factor alone makes New Mexico a strong contender for producing quality cannabis on the world stage. Add in all the similarities in climate, soil types, and geography to Afghanistan–one of the oldest hash-producing regions in the world–and a suite of other opportunities are revealed. A significant portion of the genetic makeup of modern-day cannabis hails from Afghanistan, and many of your favorite strains likely have a predisposition to thrive in our harsh desert biomes.
There’s something ancient sleeping in every strain you’ve ever smoked, something that wants to test itself against the harsh winds and blazing sun of its ancestral homeland. It is vital to remember that cannabis is a plant, one with an evolutionary history stretching back tens of thousands of years. As humans, our impact on this evolution has been thoroughly altered by prohibition and the state-sponsored eradication efforts that drove cultivation out of the sun, and forced the plant to adapt to growing indoors under artificial sunlight.
Much as cannabis evolved to weather the blazing sun of its high-altitude origins, so too must New Mexico’s cannabis industry prepare to endure the coming struggles of broader competition.
While it is too late to undo the harm of the market collapse currently underway in New Mexico, we can transform this stumbling start into a competitive edge. This first major crash occurs in any market when prohibition is repealed; the risk of spending a lifetime in federal prison is replaced with the risk of losing money in a business venture, and the reward shrinks accordingly. Let’s call this the “prohibition price bubble.” When prohibition goes away, the cost of weed no longer reflects the massive risk taken by those who choose to grow or sell it.
The second domino is already primed to fall, and to be taken full advantage of by states such as Oregon which has (wisely) passed legislation to facilitate interstate commerce as soon as legally possible. Once legal interstate commerce comes into play, regional titans of cannabis production, northern California and southern Oregon, stand to defend their titles as the domestic heavyweights, producing the lion’s share (in both quality and quantity) of cannabis consumed in the U.S.
As this shift takes place, a farmer in New Mexico can expect not only to compete with other farmers locally, but with growers across the country. It’s hard to imagine a small farm in New Mexico competing on scale alone when agricultural behemoths in corn belt states can grow bulk cannabis as readily as they grow corn and soy. Simultaneously, the nation’s underground producers of quality cannabis will emerge into the legal market. This rush of dark horse contestants will lay claim to producing the finest cannabis, capturing the boutique end of the scale. The introduction of such immense competition for both scale and quality of production will have an enormous impact on the shape of the industry across the country.
Lastly, before the dust even begins to settle on interstate commerce, I expect international commerce to add a layer of complexity for American farmers. As if national competition wasn’t enough pressure, now we’re looking at a future where a New Mexican farmer must also compete with farms in the global south. For anyone with a relationship with cannabis, these changes will be felt in terms of availability, price, and consistency, as farmers across the world cast their bets.
You may be asking yourself, “Why does this matter to me, a pot smoker, at all? If I’m not a farmer, how does any of this impact me, beyond weed getting cheaper?”
My answer to that: We can make choices now, in New Mexico, to ensure our unique regional advantages turn local production into an enduring source of regional pride, of identity, and of financial security and abundance for our cash-strapped, rural communities, much like the state treats Hatch chile.
Picture, for a moment, a quality, luxury bottle of wine. If you imagined something French, that’s by design. While wine can be grown on all continents, in 1855 the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce created rules and structure that defined how quality wines were evaluated. In the century and a half since, this appellation of origin has set the standards adhered to (or replicated by) the multi-billion dollar wine industry across the globe. Today, while French wine producers must compete with bulk production of minimum quality product, as well as many other regional producers of premium wines, they have retained their strong position, continuing to deliver on a promise of high quality at a worthy price.
What the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce brought into existence for wine in 1855, New Mexico can do for cannabis, here and now.
My inspiration for applying lessons from French wine classification to cannabis was the late Frenchy Cannoli. Frenchy was a luminary in the field of writing and teaching seriously about cannabis, with an important and enduring body of work. In Frenchy’s 2017 article for WeedWorld magazine, “AOC: appellation d’origine contrôlée (Controlled Designation of Origin)”, he provides a much deeper look at the details of how these systems work currently for other agricultural products, and how we could apply the same standards to cannabis.
New Mexico has all the ingredients to be known worldwide for the quality of our sun-grown cannabis. A regional identity of this caliber provides not only a deep sense of pride for the beauty and power of the land where we live, but enormous tangible benefits for rural communities.
At the time of writing this, New Mexico is first in the nation at something I believe hints at a powerful undercurrent that should not be ignored. Not only are we first, but by such an enormous margin it’s almost comical. Of states with legalized adult-use cannabis, New Mexico has over four times the national average of dispensaries per capita, according to a report by cannabis law firm Vicente LLP. While I know this is a sore spot for many of my colleagues in the cannabis industry, it’s the reality we find ourselves in. As Marcus Aurelius posited, often a challenge is an opportunity in disguise. While others may see a capitalistic free for all, I see this untapped energy as a groundswell of enthusiasm for the market we all share. Like wine aficionados in Bordeaux in the 19th century, New Mexicans are coming out in full force for everyone’s favorite plant. Channeled outwards, beyond the temporary barriers of state and international lines, this energy can become something truly incredible, something I hope to see.
Wylie Atherton is a cannabis industry professional with over a decade of experience in New Mexico and Oregon. He is passionate about sustainable development that comes from and gives back to the community.