The following is an excerpt from a 1989 economic development report called, "What Businesses Make Sense for Humboldt County?" prepared for the county by Arizona firm Mountain West Research:

"According to local interviews, by the mid-'70s, the quality of the marijuana produced in Humboldt County was well known. The growing business flourished for six to seven years, up through the mid-'80s. Since then, however, the efforts of CAMP [the multi-agency Campaign Against Marijuana Planting] and others have forced all of the large growers out of the county. Some of the growers have gone to southern Oregon, some to Mendocino County, and others to isolated spots all across the U.S. Only small operators, growing for personal use or as an income supplement, are left in Humboldt County. ...

"Local interviewees do not believe the marijuana business will ever return to Humboldt County in large scale. If it were legalized, interviews say that the tobacco companies are prepared to plant marijuana as row crops in Sacramento and other central California counties. However, the quality of the Humboldt environment could make it the Napa Valley of the marijuana industry, producing small quantities of high-grade product. Either way, the total impact would be quite small."