Thanks to President Obama and the federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California, gray-market weed prices are plummeting.

That might be good for you guys who don't have your doctors' recommendations yet, but cannabis growers in the weed-cultivation capital of the nation, Humboldt County, are bummed. And the price decrease could put criminals and cartels back in control:

According to the Seattle Times, because of federal and local busts across the state, growers don't have as many buyers:

The closure of hundreds of marijuana dispensaries across California and a federal crackdown on licensing programs for medical-pot cultivation are leaving growers in the North Coast redwoods with harvested stashes many can't sell.


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That might actually be good news for your street buyers out there.

But it's bad news for crime, quality control and the medical marijuana movement's promise to take weed out of the hands of the cartels and put into a safe environment. It might be a FAIL but, ironically, you can blame the so-called liberal President Obama, at least in part.

His administration has been on a tear against what he has deemed “big” cannabis business in California, raiding Oaksterdam University in Oakland and pretty much shutting medical marijuana outlets out of Santa Barbara County.

The Times says the lack of legit buyers is pushing prices down, way down, from $5,000 for a pound of Humboldt / Emerald Triangle cannabis in 2010 to as little as $800 today.

While Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said you “you might do better” growing “tomatoes,” some worry that the price drop will make the Humboldt area the capital of fully illegal weed once again.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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