This month, Congress announced it would work to reduce the financial strain on commercial fishermen who participated in a federal buyback of permits and fishing boats, mostly draggers, in California back in 2003.

There’s a bill in the House to refinance a buyback loan at a lower rate than the 6.97 percent set by the feds when the buyback was enacted. It also reduces fees collected under the program from a maximum of 5 percent to 3 percent.

It’s welcome news for commercial fishermen—but what good did the original buyback do, if any?

Liz Ryan, a fisheries expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says that the buyback program, aimed at reducing fishing pressure, worked under the principle of the reverse auction.

Fishermen who offered the lowest for-sale price to the government were the first to
have their boats and permits bought out.

Those fishermen got cash in exchange for giving up their boats and permits. The boats were permanently retired from fishing, the permits torn up. The remaining California groundfish fleet was then on hook for a combination loan-grant program that sent $37.5 million via the government loan, and another $10 million in grant money, to fishermen willing to hang up their skins.

“The loan has to be paid back by the industry itself,” says Ryan. Under the program, loan payments are taken directly out of fish sales, and sent to the feds by the buyers. But more than a decade after the buyback, which affected 91 boats and 239 permits, NOAA can’t say whether the program helped save collapsing groundfish stocks in California, which comprise 90 species.

“It was the buyback’s intention that the fisheries recover, but it’s not as if we have the staff,” says Ryan, to monitor the efficacy of the program. “You can’t say that the buyback has helped these fisheries to recover.”

What you can say, adds NOAA spokeswoman Connie Barclay, is that “it’s one of the tools contributing to the ending of overfishing.”

For Bodega Bay fisherman Tony Anello, the buyback program was an example of “closing the gate after the cows have already left.”

Anello supported the move to reduce the number of draggers in the state commercial fleet. It’s a destructive, wasteful way to harvest the ocean’s bounty.

Anello and his family run crab boats in Bodega Bay and own the Spud Point Crab Co. He says pressures on Dungeness crab, combined with a very shaky salmon fishery, means uncertainty is still the rule of the day—and fishermen are hitting the crab hard to make ends meet.

Anello has already seen a drop-off in his crab catch this year. His traps are now coming out of the briny with one to four crabs, he says.

“Right now, the crab industry is overcapitalized,” he says. “I’m surprised that the fishery has held up as well as it has.”

And forget the salmon, he says. “If you don’t catch enough crab during the season, you’re going to starve. There aren’t enough salmon.”

Humboldt State University economics professor Dr. Steven Hackett has researched the socioeconomics of fisheries management and asks the question: “How do you sustain fishermen and the industry cluster that surrounds them?”

Bodega Bay has an interlocking economy driven by fish and crabs: there are slip fees, fuel docks, fish processors, marine engine repair shops. The main impediments to sustaining a healthy industry cluster, says Hackett, are a tight regulatory climate factored in with prohibitive costs to enter and maintain a commercial-fishing business.

“We’ve seen years where people really struggle,” he says. “And it doesn’t take too many of those before you have to find another line of work—and that cascades into the industry cluster.”

Note: This article has been updated and corrected to reflect the accurate interest rate currently charged to fishermen, and with additional information about a proposed adjusted fee schedule for participants in the buyback program.

Last month in Las Vegas, marijuana advocates were horrified to watch cannabis culture collide with corporate greed at the National Cannabis Industry Association Conference.

Debby Goldsberry, 2013’s Emerald Cup Lifetime Achievement Award winner and a 25-year medical-cannabis activist, described the scene to a reporter over the weekend as “suits and ties with dollar signs in their eyes.”

This year’s well-attended Emerald Cup at the Sonoma Fairgrounds served as a welcome antidote to the Vegas scene. It was not only the best weed fest in the West—or any other direction—but functioned as a spiritual cleansing with thick clouds of skunky smoke and the fruity smells of world-class extracts (thanks to Baked in Humboldt and the Sonoma County Collective).

Besides record crowds (about 10,000) and all sorts of merchandise for sale, the Emerald Cup was a showcase of open minds committed to freedom, health and wellness. As California looks at a likely future of highly regulated, legalized cannabis in 2015, it’s inevitable that some people will get into the business strictly for the money. That’s the American dream for lots of people, after all.

But members of the cannabis community have always valued freedom over safety, compassion over currency and wellness over material wealth.

The Emerald Cup’s medical emphasis highlighted many patient-centered services and products that will enable humans to live healthier, more productive lives. As such, the Santa Rosa event represented the victory of cannabis capitalism over cannabis corporatization.

Canadian panelist Phillippe Lucas brought the point home Saturday. He noted that Canada pays for medical cannabis for its veterans, which requires a well-regulated system to ensure a consistent product. You’ll need at least
$4 million to break into Canada’s medical cannabis industry, says Lucas, who is the vice president of patient relations and research at Tilray, a large medical cannabis corporation in Canada.

Tilray has been able to “harness the power of capitalism,” says Lucas, to provide safe, consistent cannabis to suffering patients. The company is also involved in groundbreaking research. One upcoming study will test cross-applicability in post-traumatic stress disorder patients by examining military veterans, police officers and sexual assault victims who utilize cannabis to treat their PTSD.

There’s a similar study underway in Colorado focused on military vets, but elsewhere in the States, research is stifled by cannabis’ federal classification as a Schedule I controlled substance—which says it has no medical value whatsoever.

As California lurches toward legalization—all roads are leading to 2016 as the Year—access to medical cannabis still varies county to county and city to city. For example, Marin County’s oldest licensed dispensary was shut down years ago for being too close to a baseball field. Patients there are currently being served by delivery services, or by going out of county.

This reporter goes to the Cannabis Buyer’s Club of Berkeley (CBCB), which also offers yoga, aura readings and peer support. Director of CBCB Aundre Speciale spoke at the Emerald Cup’s women’s panel on Saturday. She was asked: What business practices make for a successful cannabis operation?

She says “love” has always been her business model.