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California will vote on an initiative this November to legalize marijuana. It might even pass. But it turns out that the pot growers of Humboldt County are having second thoughts about the whole thing:

Recently, “Keep Pot Illegal” bumper stickers have been seen on cars around the county. In chat rooms and on blogs, anonymous writers predict that tobacco companies will crush small farmers and take marijuana production to the Central Valley. With legalization, if residents don’t act, “we’re going to be ruined,” said Anna Hamilton, a radio host on KMUD-FM (91.1) in southern Humboldt County. ….Legalization could take many forms. But the conventional wisdom here is that fully legal weed might fetch no more than a few hundred dollars a pound, as more people grow it and police no longer pull up millions of plants a year. Illegal marijuana “is the government’s best agricultural price-support program ever,” said Gerald Myers, a retired engineer and former volunteer fire chief who moved to the county in 1970. “If they ever want to help the wheat farmers, make wheat illegal.”

I guess pot cultivation will be a little less fun when it becomes just another business. On the other hand, surely there’s a benefit to being able to go to sleep each night not worried about DEA agents busting down your door and hauling you off to prison?