How recreational marijuana legalization would impact small farmers in Humboldt County will mostly depend on the actions of the local industry, according to a Humboldt State University panel discussion Wednesday.

Fred Krissman, a research associate with the HSU Anthropology Department and scholar in the university’s Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR), said marijuana is currently the “last small farm industry in California.”

But he said the legalization of recreational marijuana through Proposition 64, also called the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), this year could change that by allowing for large scale grows after five years, which he said could pave the way for larger businesses taking over the market as has happened in other agricultural sectors.

“This is a major threat to small scale grows,” he said. “Most best practice growers that I have met oppose AUMA on that issue alone.”

Krissman was one of four marijuana experts who spoke in Wednesday’s panel discussion in the university’s Kate Buchanan Room. The panel, hosted by the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research, allowed the crowd of students, local residents and cannabis industry stakeholders to ask questions about the legalization measure anonymously by text.

Panelist Nathan Whittington, the Humboldt director for the California Growers Association and a local cultivator, said should Proposition 64 pass, it will be like a “race” for small farmers to begin branding themselves and protecting themselves. Part of that, Whittington said, is for the industry to realize that it does not have to disclose the intellectual property that helped craft the industry when larger businesses come to buy them out.

“When these guys show up, you’ve got to understand you are Coca-Cola,” Whittington said.

As fellow panelist Kristin Nevedal explained, the proposition would not allow grows larger than 1 acre to be permitted for the first five years after its passage. It will also not allow non-California residents from obtaining a business license for the first two years, giving small farmers a “small window” of opportunity to stake their claim in the market.

Nevedal, an Americans for Safe Access consultant and local cultivator, said she personally supports Proposition 64 and the protections it can provide to small farmers, such as allowing farmers with up to 10,00 square feet of cannabis to grow and sell their product on site. She said this is currently not possible under the state’s commercial medical marijuana rules.

Other benefits Nevedal said she sees in Proposition 64 is that the state has the discretion on whether it will even license large grows and that it also has anti-monopoly language.

“It does prohibit the act of selling a crop below the cost it takes to produce it,” she said.

For most of the panel, the tax structure in Proposition 64 was an issue worth following. Along with the measure’s own taxes, recreational marijuana sales would also be subject to state and local sales taxes, Sequoia Hudson of the True Humboldt cooperative said.

“The tax issue is really something that needs to be paid attention to so that it’s not such an accumulative area for the black market to thrive,” she said.

Other topics discussed by the panel included restrictions on personal possession, criminal resentencing provisions, and comparisons of current medical cannabis rules to Proposition 64.

Pertinent to the university itself was a brief discussion on the future of marijuana research.

Tony Silvaggio, an HSU environmental sociology professor and HIIMR member, said that Proposition 64 would not take cannabis research out of its regulatory “gray area.”

He said that the federal government’s listing of marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic with no medicinal uses currently makes it nearly impossible for the university to study the plant itself, though he said that social science and economic studies will likely benefit from Proposition 64’s passage.

Krissman said that the federal government ­­­— and Proposition 64 in some ways — still treats marijuana like plutonium.

“It’s a radioactive topic and no one has suffered more of the problems of this than (HIIMR) faculty,” he said.

As many research grants come directly or indirectly from the federal government, Krissman said unpermitted research could cut off funding and “basically destroy a research university.”

Silvaggio said there is also still a “stigma” within the academic world regarding cannabis.

“(Krissman) and I are pot doctors when we go to conferences,” he said.

Until federal prohibition is lifted, the black market will continue to thrive as well, Silvaggio said.

“Without federal prohibition being removed, we’re going to have pressure on our ecosystems here as every year it gets worse and worse,” he said.

But if California legalizes recreational cannabis, Krissman said it could hold some sway at the federal level to reschedule marijuana.

“We’re hoping this finally turns the tide,” he said.

Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504.