Humboldt County's marijuana saga began in the early 1970s, when young hippies made the exodus from Haight-Ashbury and elsewhere. If the Bay Area is the political center of California's marijuana industry and Los Angeles is its financial engine, the Emerald Triangle is its agricultural heartland. Consisting of three connecting counties in northern California, the region's landscape is breathtaking. When the Control and Tax initiative was certified for the ballot, it struck fear into the hearts of many growers who worried legalization would lower prices. Still worse, some speculated large companies would undercut prices with vast fields of marijuana grown on massive legal farms. Many growers blamed the legalization of medical marijuana for destabilizing the cultivation economy. After all, it was medical marijuana that created the green rush of people who converted their garages to indoor gardens and flooded the market with marijuana.