Summary
Oral History Center historian Todd Holmes has been traveling up and down California to document the overlooked history of California cannabis communities as part of the multidisciplinary project, Legacy Cannabis Genetics: People and their Plants, A Community-Driven Study.
For over 150 years, residents and visitors alike have not run short of reasons to support the claim, “There’s no place like California.” And since the 1960s, that claim has been echoed—albeit in whispers—among cannabis circles around the globe. This summer, Oral History Center historian Todd Holmes has been traveling up and down the state to document the overlooked history of California cannabis communities as part of the multidisciplinary project, Legacy Cannabis Genetics: People and their Plants, A Community-Driven Study. Funded in 2023 by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the project is now in its final year charting the history and genetic heritage of the state’s famed cannabis communities.
In many respects, the study can be seen as one of the first of its kind. The research team is composed of academic and community researchers from across the state: sociologist Dominic Corva from Cal Poly Humboldt; historian Todd Holmes from UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center; Genine Coleman from Origins Council, a nonprofit public policy and research institute serving the state’s historic rural cannabis farming regions; Khalil Ferguson of United CORE, a statewide equity advocacy organization representing the interests of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in urban communities; and Eleanor Kuntz, co-founder of Canndor the world’s first cannabis herbarium, and co-founder and CEO of LeafWorks, a genomics and plant science company. Moreover, the project operates through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), a methodology premised on a partnership approach to research that equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers in all aspects of the research process. “CBPR is an approach that not only affords community members an equal seat at the table,” Holmes explained, “but more importantly recognizes them as the real experts in this field.” Typically used in public health research, the CBPR approach of the project represents the first time the methodology has been used in cannabis research.
For the oral history component of the project, Holmes is conducting around 100 hours of oral history interviews with cannabis farmers and breeders throughout the state. When complete, the oral histories will comprise the California Cannabis Oral History Collection at the Bancroft Library, another first-of-its-kind component of the project. “For most of the communities in this project, this is the first time they have told their stories,” Holmes explained. “It’s a powerful reminder of the importance of oral history and a real honor to help place California cannabis within the historical record.”
Be on the lookout for the release of the California Cannabis Oral History Collection in the fall of 2026. For more on the project, visit the Legacy Cannabis Genetics website.