Murder Mountain: Where marijuana can kill

January 9, 2019 1:23 PM - Season 1 (Full Season)

What happens when California dreaming becomes a nightmare? When people head to Humboldt County, California in search of quick riches in the form of marijuana, often times they are unaware of the price they might ultimately pay in the illegal cannabis growing capital of the United States.

This documentary that is newly available on Netflix is about more than just the disappearance of a man named Garrett Rodriguez. It takes the viewer through the history of weed in Humboldt County.

Write Up from The Daily Beast - Netflix’s ‘Murder Mountain’: Where Marijuana Can Kill

Eureka News - Humboldt County Sheriff Unhappy with Portrayal on New Show

KRCR News - Director of Murder Mountain responds to Sheriff's Comments

After the slow start in episode 1 (seriously, give the show like 15 minutes to get going) I was deeply entertained by this documentary. So far only on episode 3/6 but I am loving the stories of the original Humboldt County pot growers.

Not so much loving the stories about CAMP. It's kind of horrifying the lengths that were taken to get rid of some plants. WP article about some of it here.

posted by MadMadam (1 comment total)

Previously on MeFI -

The air was humid with a microclimate of marijuana June 10, 2014
The Believer takes a longform look at Humboldt County's marijuana cultivation culture. Since the early ’70s, when growing began to replace a foundering timber industry in Humboldt, reliance on the marijuana economy has only increased. By 2012, it was thought that marijuana accounted for one billion of the county’s four-billion-dollar economy. During my stay, I don’t remember seeing a clothing store, bookstore, supermarket, bar, restaurant, supply shop, gas station, repair shop, pharmacy, or burrito shack that wasn’t patronized by someone with direct ties to a pot farm. You could smell the skunk, see the twenties. In parkivng lots, souped-up grower trucks growled by—mostly Toyotas, a status symbol in Humboldt. Somewhere along the way, that back-to-the-land exodus begun in San Francisco some forty years ago, when poor hippies left the city and went north, into the woods, in search of a simpler, cheaper life, their own piece of Arcadia on which food and intoxicants alike could be grown, to offer a thumbnail history—somewhere along the way, that movement morphed into a thriving industry.

Marijuana Panic - May 17, 2010
Plummeting Marijuana prices cause panic in CA. In 1983, the Reagan administration launched a massive air and ground campaign to eradicate pot and lock up growers in northern California. Charley Custer, a writer and community activist, had just arrived to Humboldt County from Chicago. With the Reagan crackdown, Custer recalls, wholesale prices shot up — to as high as $5,000 a pound. That sudden and ironic windfall for those growers willing to risk prison time transformed the community.... Prices are now much less than $2,000 a pound, according to interviews with more than a dozen growers and dealers. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says some growers can't get rid of their processed pot at any price.
posted by MadMadam at 1:28 PM on January 9, 2019