As their industry transitions, though, growers in the Triangle are opening up to each other about their work, and the sexism they’ve encountered. Aleman, the Mendocino chair, recently attended industry events in Las Vegas and Oregon. She was shocked by the display of other businesses’ strength, and exasperated by the men she heard giggling at some businesswomen there. “I couldn’t believe women were still being disrespected that way,” she says.

“Men have pretty much been in charge, and they’re still in charge pretty much of the movement, and that would include the initiative for the 2016 ballot,” says Trippet. “There’s a lot of avoidance of inclusiveness.” When Aleman went to flyer for the Humboldt-Mendocino campout at a big garden supply store in Willits, which offers a hugely popular growing season sale each 4/20, she says she was told to “go home and read a book to your children.”

Still, Aleman says her trips out of town have made her more determined to connect with women at home. “I had known one woman for 15 years before I realized we both were using cannabis,” she says. By running meetings, she’s increasingly aware of how divided local women are—both geographically and economically. Some women drive two hours each way to meet up, Aleman says, and more don’t have the time or money to make the trip. Many women working in the industry—trimmers, seasonal laborers, transporters—take the same risks as business owners, but don’t stand to reap the same rewards. Aleman has offered childcare and scholarship money, sponsored by local businesses, to help “women and families of color, local tribal members, sexual abuse survivors, farmers who’ve been through raids, and veterans” get to the meetings. “We don’t want women from different communities to be working on these issues separately,” she says. “We’re trying to support tribal communities, Latino communities. We want to break down the invisible barriers,” she says.

“The best thing women can do it figure out how to get compliant. Being a legitimate business is the only way we can address this,” says Amber Cline, a 32-year-old farmer who says her artisanal weed business subsidizes her vegetable sales. Anticipating the legal changes, Cline began giving presentations around the region earlier this year on how farms can adopt environmentally friendly techniques that comply with new regulations. Cline estimates it will take existing farms at least $50,000 to get up to speed with new requirements, an amount beyond the reach of many. “There are a lot of us trying to grow with integrity, using the best practices we’ve developed over the years,” says Aleman. “But even if we think positively and organize, I think there will be a lot of hard years ahead, and a lot of people won’t make it.”

On the last day of September, a convoy thought to be comprised of county, state, and federal agents makes its way up the mountain where Cline’s farm is located. Helicopters fly the southern ridges of nearby Covelo, unidentified men descending from them and chopping down plants on multiple properties. In Mendocino County, it can be hard for local reporters to get a straight answer about raids from the sheriff’s department, but as the convoy rolls in, locals activate phone trees and light up Facebook with tracking of its progress. In the comments, a new mother debates whether or not to leave with her newborn, then asks a friend to check on her goats and chickens as she decides to flee. An older woman, who’s lived on the hill with her family for decades, stays behind with her plants and is arrested.

