When does a kid become an adult? It’s an elusive question that developmental psychologists, philosophers and parents might answer differently.

But lawmakers can’t work with ambiguity. So in the late 1990s, Congress decided that — at least when it comes to surfing the web — kids are people under 13.

Last week, California legislators said: Nope. Kids are people under 18. And if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill they just passed, kids under 18 in California will get many more privacy rights online.

What young people encounter on apps and the web has become a source of mounting concern for parents, fed by alarming headlines and new research. So a bipartisan group of legislators pushed forward the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, also known as AB 2273. Passed unanimously out of the Legislature last week, the bill could become a model for other states — or provide a roadmap for Congress, which is considering its own privacy bill.

“Social media is something that was not designed with children in mind,” said Emily “Emi” Kim, an 18-year-old who lives in Porter Ranch, near Los Angeles.

Kim splits her time being legislative director for Log Off Movement, a youth-led organization that advocated for the bill, while also attending college classes and working at Chipotle.

Here’s what the bill would do

If it gets signed into law, California businesses that provide online services or products likely to be accessed by kids under 18 would have to provide greater privacy protections by default starting in July 2024. Specifically the bill would:

• Require companies to assess potential harm in how they use kids’ data in new services or features, and create a plan to reduce the risk before the feature is rolled out.
• Prohibit companies from using kids’ information in a way that the business knows (or has reason to know) is “materially detrimental” to their wellbeing — like pushing kids to photos of skinny supermodels after they search for weight loss information.
• Generally prohibit companies from collecting, selling, sharing or keeping any personal information on a kid, unless it’s necessary to provide the service the kid is directly using.
• Ban companies from collecting, selling, or sharing precise location data for kids by default, unless it’s strictly necessary for the feature, and only then for a limited time.
• Require the product to make it obvious to kids when they are being tracked, if the company allows parents or adults to track kids online.

If some of those requirements sound vague, the bill also creates a new working group — made up of experts in kids’ data privacy, computer science, mental health and more — to make recommendations to the Legislature.

The bill would be enforced by the state attorney general, who could bring civil lawsuits that could result in penalties of up to $7,500 per kid for intentional violations.

Karla Garcia, a parent of an 11-year-old in the west Los Angeles neighborhood of Palms, supports the bill because she hopes it will rein in the algorithms that suck her son, Alessandro Greco, into YouTube. “He knows it’s an addiction,” she said of her son’s America’s Got Talent binges, which keep him from doing his homework. “Honestly, I have this fight every night with my child.”

“I want him to have his independence, but this is stronger than him,” Garcia said.

How the law has worked elsewhere

The idea was borrowed from a U.K. law, which went into effect in September 2021. Since the law passed, tech companies have made changes, including the following:

• YouTube turned off autoplay — the feature that plays videos continuously — for users under 18.
• Google made SafeSearch the default for users under 18, and stopped tracking kids’ location data.
• TikTok stopped sending push notifications to teenagers late at night. Teens 13-15 don’t receive push notifications after 9 p.m., and 16- and 17-year-olds don’t receive push notifications after 10 p.m. The company also disabled direct messages for users under 16.

Who gets to be a kid?

The bill faced pushback from lobbying organizations representing tech companies and other businesses, including the California Chamber of Commerce, Entertainment Software Association and TechNet. TechNet counts Amazon, Google, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and Uber among its members. The organizations argued that the bill would apply to more sites than necessary.

“It’s another example of why we need a federal privacy law that includes universal standards to protect kids online instead of a patchwork of state laws that creates confusion and compliance complications for businesses,” said Dylan Hoffman, TechNet’s executive director overseeing California and the Southwest, in a statement.

“He knows it’s an addiction. Honestly, I have this fight every night with my child.”
Karla Garcia, parent of an 11-year-old in Los Angeles

One of the main changes the groups pushed for was lowering the bill’s definition of a kid from 18 to 13, as in the federal law. Then they advocated for 16, which is a threshold in a California privacy law, said Hoffman. But the business groups weren’t successful in that push.

“Any parent, to be honest any grandparent, any sister, brother, would tell you that a 13-year-old is not an adult,” said Baroness Beeban Kidron, a member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, who spearheaded the effort to pass the U.K. law, and founded of 5Rights Foundation, which sponsored the California bill. “You can’t ask a 13-year-old to make adult decisions,” Kidron said.

What happens next?

First, Newsom will decide whether he wants to sign the bill into law, or veto it. If he signs it, most of the measure’s requirements won’t go into effect until 2024.

But companies would have to start identifying and mitigating risks to children immediately, said Nichole Rocha, head of U.S. affairs at 5Rights Foundation. In other words, if the bill is signed into law, companies might start rolling out changes well before 2024.

What if companies don’t want to comply? Would the threat of a potential lawsuit from California’s attorney general be enough to prod them into action?

“I will be following that very carefully,” said Buffy Wicks, a Democratic state assemblymember from Oakland and one of the bill’s authors. The legislature could pass another bill if the way the law is enforced needs to be refined, she said. “We can sit here and make policies all day long, but if they’re not being implemented, not being enforced, sort of, what’s the point?”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Press release from the Fortuna Police Department:

On Saturday September 3, 2022 at about 11:43 P.M. Fortuna Officers received multiple reports of an active shooter at an event taking place at the Fortuna Veterans Memorial building in the 1400 block of Main Street.

Officers arrived on scene and encountered several subjects outside the building, who related that the alleged suspect had fled the area on foot and was last seen headed westbound. Initial responding officers were able to determine that the suspect had fled and there were no injured persons on scene. While officers were canvasing the area officers received a report that subjects heard yelling for help in the area of 9th and O Street. In the area of 9th and O Street officers located two intoxicated 16 year old juveniles, one of which was stuck in heavy brush. The juveniles were arrested, found to be intoxicated with no injuries and they were not in possession of a firearm.

Further investigation revealed that the Fortuna Veterans Memorial Building had been rented out for a private event and the two intoxicated arrested juveniles had been at the event. Persons at the event told the intoxicated juveniles to leave the private event. One of the juveniles allegedly became upset that they were told to leave and they threatened to kill the person. As the juvenile was leaving the event after making the threat they claimed to be in possession of a firearm, which caused panic and multiple reports to law enforcement. No witnesses were located that allegedly observed a firearm and there were no signs of a firearm being discharged. Persons on scene identified one of the intoxicated juveniles officers had in custody as the juvenile who made the threat.

A 16-year-old juvenile was arrested for 647(f) PC, Public Intoxication and 422 PC, Threats. Officers attempted to gain clearance for booking the Juvenile into Juvenile Hall and they were refused by Juvenile Probation. The juvenile was cited and released to a guardian.

A 16-year-old juvenile was arrested for 647(f) PC, Public Intoxication, cited and released to a guardian. The Fortuna Police Department would like to thank our allied agencies, Rio Dell Police Department, Ferndale Police Department and The California Highway Patrol for their response and aid during this investigation.

The Fortuna Police Department remains committed to public safety and transparency.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Going Down, Sept. 4

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Press release from Humboldt Bay Fire:

On September 3rd at 1414 hrs, Humboldt Bay Fire was dispatched to a reported Structure Fire at the 5100 block of Woodland Way. Humboldt Bay Fire responded with 3 Engines, 1 Truck and 1 Battalion Chief.

Photo: Humboldt Bay Fire

The first arriving unit reported a single story residential structure fully involved with fire showing through the roof. A second alarm was requested and Humboldt Bay Fire units began to attack the fire. There was no threat to other structures or the wildland and the fire was knocked down in ½ hour. While extinguishing the fire, firefighters discovered a deceased adult male in a rear bedroom. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and Humboldt County Coroner were requested to the scene.

Humboldt Bay Fire units remained on scene for another 4 hours to completely extinguish the fire, conduct the fire investigation and assist the Humboldt County Coroner. There were no firefighter injuries and the structure sustained heavy fire damage with an estimated loss of $350,000. The fire investigation could not determine the exact cause of the fire but the fire was accidental in nature.

Humboldt Bay Fire would like to thank the following agencies for their assistance: Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, Humboldt County Coroner, City Ambulance and PG&E. Arcata Fire District and Samoa Peninsula Fire District covered Humboldt Bay Fire’s jurisdiction during the incident.

If the universe is “fine tuned,” that is, if the constants of nature are so perfectly tuned as to allow life here on Earth, then it behooves us to look for a cause. That’s a big “if,” as I’ll get to in a minute, but let’s first allow that it really is fine tuned.

For instance, if the cosmological constant, a measure of the expansion rate of the universe, was slightly larger than what we now measure, galaxies (and therefore stars and planets) wouldn’t form, i.e. no us. The electromagnetic force — which dictates how atoms work, is dictated by the fine-structure constant; change it by a tad, and there goes matter: again, no us. And on and on, through another 24 constants of nature, all seemingly precisely tuned to allow us to be here, not to mention (by the way!) the rest of the universe as we observe it.

The God solution is that she/he/it fixed these constants just so at the time of the Big Bang … and here we are, nearly 14 billion years later. Sounds a bit iffy — what is she/he/it got one of the constants slightly wrong? (And anyway, who or what fine-tuned God?) The problem with the God solution is that it doesn’t go anywhere. Any questions can be answered by, “God did it,” and there goes your curiosity about, well, anything. That is, the God solution is ascientific: science has nothing to say about it. Then there’s…

The multiverse solution. If there are zillions of universes — perhaps an infinity of them — all with different constants, you’d naively expect that one of them (at least) would have the constants that we find in our universe. The multiverse wasn’t forced on us by fine tuning, by the way, but as the logical outcome of the inflationary model of the early universe. The idea is that it went through a short period of unimaginably rapid expansion to give us not only the universe we now see, i.e. our universe, but it would have spawned other universes, like a non-stop bubble machine.

Curiously, these two solutions, God and multiverse, have this in common: they’re both untestable — articles of faith, if you like — and therefore ascientific. Science, which is essentially a process to test hypotheses (the empirical method) has nothing to say about either of them.

The third response, which happens to be the one I’m partial to, is to ask, “How would we know if the universe is fine tuned or not?” Sure, it may look that way because of our expectations, but how do we know what to expect? We have no other universes for comparison. With a sample size of only one, we can’t say anything about the likelihood or unlikelihood of those 26 constants of nature having the values they have.

Or, to put it another way, “What fine tuning?”

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It is tough to be a fish in the Klamath River. On the heels of a large fishkill caused by a debris flow following the McKinney Fire comes another fishkill, this time caused by a pathogen, Flavobacterium columnare, more commonly known as gill rot. Hot, tepid waters in the lower Klamath form a perfect breeding ground for the disease. Elsewhere in the Klamath watershed, ranchers are illegally diverting water (at the encouragement of Rep. Doug LaMalfa), creating perilous conditions in the Shasta River, a tributary to the Klamath.

But there is good news too. The final environmental analysis for Klamath River dam removal is complete and dam removal may begin as early as next year.

Guests Craig Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate at the Karuk Tribe, Dave Webb of Friends of Shasta River and Nick Joslin of the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center join Gang Green to break down what’s happening in the Klamath.

AUDIO:

“The EcoNews Report,” Sept. 3, 2022

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Press release from the unified command of the Six Rivers Lightning Fires:

The Six Rivers Lightning Complex remains in unified command with California Interagency Incident Management Team 15, California Highway Patrol, Trinity County Sheriff, and Humboldt County Sheriff. The Six Rivers Lightning Complex is currently 40,995 acres with 64% containment and 1,521 personnel assigned to the incident.

CURRENT SITUATION

Wildland firefighters will continue efforts to increase containment on the remaining two fires of the Six Rivers Lightning Complex. The Ammon fire has experience minimal growth over the past week, however, interior smoldering of ground fuels will persist with limited threats to control lines. The Campbell fire also remained within the control lines yesterday.

Today, firefighters will focus efforts on holding and improving the control lines near Cedar Creek on the north end of the fire and above the communities of Trinity Village and Hawkins Bar near the southeastern perimeter.  

A National Infrared Operations fixed wing aircraft conducted an overnight flight to identify the remaining  pockets of heat across the fire area. Today, ground resources will target those hotspots to limit the potential for future spread. Fire resources will continue tactical patrols due to the steep terrain and abundance of burning dead ground fuel, to lessen the threat of hot material rolling across the mid-slope roads causing spot fires outside of the control lines along all the perimeters.    

Most of the current smoke production is being generated from several large, unburned pockets of vegetation well within the perimeter of the Campbell fire. The northeast winds in the early morning may bring smoke into communities West and South of the fire area. The overall decrease in fire behavior should improve air quality in the coming days.

Check out the Six Rivers Smoke Outlook for more information:  https://outlooks.wildlandfiresmoke.net/outlook/65384a03.

ROAD CLOSURES

Due to a large presence of fire personnel and machinery working to build containment lines for the Ammon Fire, residents are asked to limit travel on Titlow Hill Road/Route 1 in zones HUM-E052 and HUM-E062 to essential traffic only. Residents may still use roads to travel out of evacuation order zones:

The following roads into evacuation zones have been closed.
-        Forest Route 7n15 at Six Rivers Forest Boundary

The following roads are restricted to local traffic only:
-        Horse Linto Creek Road at Saddle Lane (Open to residents only)
-        6N06 Sandy Bar (Route 6)
-        Titlow Hill Road (Route 1) at Horse Mountain Botanical Area 

State Route 299 remains open to through traffic. Residents are encouraged to visit http://quickmap.dot.ca.gov/ to check for state highway closures.

FOREST CLOSURES
Forest order NO. 22-10-06 Six Rivers Lightning Complex is currently in place, which includes river access at Kimtu Park.

To view this closure and map, please visit: https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/srnf/alerts-notices

EVACUATION UPDATES

For the latest evacuation information go to Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services (https://humboldtgov.org/2383/Current-Emergencies) or Trinity County Office of Emergency Services (https://www.trinitycounty.org/OES). For an interactive map of evacuation zones visit: https://community.zonehaven.com/. To sign up for alerts: www.humboldtgov.org/alerts.

HUMBOLDT COUNTY EVACUATION WARNINGS remain in effect for zones:

HUM-E032:  NORTH OF Forest Route 7n02, SOUTH OF Hoopa Valley Reservation, EAST OF Trinity River, WEST OF County Line

HUM-E061-A:  NORTH OF Forest Route 7n15, SOUTH OF Forest Route 7n15,   EAST OF Seeley McIntosh Road, Campbell Ridge Road, WEST OF Forest Route 7n15

HUM-E058:  NORTH OF Forest Route 7n15, SOUTH OF Horse Linto Creek Road, EAST OF Peach Tree Lane, WEST OF Coon Creek Rd, Forest Route 7n15

TRINITY COUNTY EVACUATION WARNINGS:

ZONE 480:  This zone includes all areas north of the Denny Road from the intersection of the Denny Road and Wallen Ranch Road, FS Road 7N04 through Hawkins Creek north to the County Line. Wallen Ranch Road, FS Road 7N04 and any spur roads off FS Road 7N04 will be closed to public access. The temporary Evacuation point will be at the Wayside Chapel located at 1020 State Route 299 in Willow Creek, CA.

ZONE 481:  This zone includes areas along the Denny Road North and North of Denny saddle through the Happy Camp Mountain Area including Bell Creek.  Areas southeast of Happy Camp Mountain through Dryer Creek and Bell Flat.  Denny Road will remain open.

Zone 482 - Suzy Q Road and all roads off of Suzy Q Road

An EVACUATION WARNING remains in effect for Campbell Ridge Road from Salyer Heights to Seeley McIntosh Road. Salyer area, including Galaxy Road, and the area of Ziegler Point Road/Forest Service Road 7N04 have been reduced to an Evacuation Warning.

ANIMAL EVACUATION CENTER Hoopa Rodeo Grounds 1767 Pine Creek Rd., Hoopa, CA 95546 Phone: (707) 492-2851

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The concept of appellations refers to a place of origin, and is receiving significant attention in the cannabis industry.

In areas like Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino and Sonoma, where sun-grown cannabis is the norm, farmers are advocating for an appellation’s designation, which will certify where something was grown and how. Supporters believe that appellation designations will prevent the whitewashing of cannabis cultivation and solidify certain regions as go-to destinations for sourcing cannabis goods.

Much like with wine and cheese, cultivators hope an appellation will differentiate product quality and create a lasting bid in the market. Amid declining prices and a decided market move away from outdoor in the smokeable flower category, the push is on to create cannabis appellations.

According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, an appellation of origin is “a protected designation that identifies the geographical region of a product and usually includes production requirements.” The program intends to help prevent the misrepresentation of a cannabis goods’ origin and promote regional collaboration around production.

To qualify for an appellation’s designation, cannabis must be grown in the ground, and without the use of structures or artificial light. In other words, appellation programs are for sun-grown flower only and prevent indoor, mixed-light, and sun-grown greenhouse operators from participating.

Part of me grumbled when I came to understand the limited scope of the appellation’s designation. There are sun-grown greenhouse grows that plant directly in native soil and use cold frames with greenhouse plastic simply to block a bit of UV and prevent flowers from full environmental exposure. No power, no tarps, just vented frames with greenhouse covers. In my view, sun-grown greenhouse flower has unparalleled beauty. Buds get frostier under skins while reducing potential scorch and bronzing. But in the purest sense, greenhouses littering the horizon are off-putting to some and arguably spoil the surrounding natural beauty.

Moreover, supporters of appellation programs argue that terroir — or the natural environment in which a product is produced including factors such as soil, topography and climate—  directly impact the quality and uniqueness of products produced.

This is certainly the case, as I have written about in the past. The very same strain can take on very different expressions based on microclimate exposure. Flowers grown in hot, arid environments will look very different than those grown with moderate temperatures and marine layer influence. Herein lies an opportunity to brand and differentiate according to many farmers.

To be clear, I applaud the concept of cannabis appellations and understand they have created significant economic value in other industries. That said, I question their viability in terms of unifying regional producers – I believe they will do the opposite.

I just googled the term “appellations” and came up with a list of the top 100 appellations for wine, along with a dizzying array of others.

Herein lies my concern.

As we look to break up a geographical area like Humboldt into multiple appellations, I fear divisiveness and further segmentation among industry participants. The cultivation community in Humboldt is already fractured. We have HCGA, Humboldt Grace and several other cannabis organizations, all presumably pedaling in their own direction. While there is undoubtedly some collaboration between these groups as we saw in the Suspend Measure S campaign, they have not really been able to coalesce around shared goals – even something as basic as marketing Humboldt cannabis.

[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Humboldt Grace was, like HCGA, an “alliance” that “advocates for its members.” Humboldt Grace is not a membership organization. The Outpost regrets the error.]

If we slice up the county further based on appellation, I fear competition will increase as various regions market themselves as the preferred spot for sourcing products. Instead of one voice advocating for the benefits of consciously grown cannabis, a term I often hear used by my friend Chris at Redwood Roots, we will now have a further bifurcated market with multiple regions presumably claiming superiority.

Given the financial headwinds facing the industry and ever-increasing competition, I believe things will get contentious between different regions which will detract, rather than support, Humboldt’s cannabis-related marketing efforts.

Depending on how aggressive we get with defining appellations, the county could potentially be segmented into many regions, further muddying the waters. In the simplest sense, we could go with SoHum, NorHum and Eastern Humboldt, but these regions boast of enormous diversity and oversimplification would sell the concept of appellations short, failing to truly honor terroir. Lowland producers, those at elevation, and those closer to or further from the coast have very different environmental exposures and will grow very different expressions of the same flower.

One might also wonder if the folks in Redway want to be grouped with those in Shively, Myers Flat, Phillipsville, Garberville, Miranda, Briceland or the Cove. What about Bridgeville, Larabee, Dinsmore and County Line? Hydesville, Carlotta and Swain’s Flat?

For example, I saw a proposed Appellation logo for Palo Verde proudly claiming to be the “Heart and Soul of the Emerald Triangle.” How do other regions feel about that? If Humboldt or the Emerald Triangle more broadly has multiple regions vying for the same, I’m not sure this helps overall outreach efforts.

Additionally, while connoisseurs may detect the nuances in cannabis flavor profiles based on the appellation, I’m not sure average consumers will. Will someone detect the slightly earthier or slightly more piney undertones from one cannabis flower to another? Will these differences create brand loyalty and improve prices? I’m not sure they will.

I have personally smoked truckloads of weed over the past three decades but generally find that OG tastes like OG and that Wedding Cake tastes like Wedding Cake. Flowers clearly look different based on environmental exposure, but I haven’t noted a meaningfully different consumption experience based on where something was grown outdoors. I don’t claim to have a refined cannabis palate, but argue most consumers don’t either.

While it’s entirely true that poorly grown or quick-dried weed will burn hotter and harsher, Appellation designation won’t solve that, nor account for these differences.

What I generally hear in response to this critique is that different regions will specialize — that is, they will grow what grows best in their appellation and become known for that. I agree that some strains do better in some places, but question whether, on a global basis, cannabis varietals will become as ubiquitous to certain regions as some grapes or cheeses are.

Another potential factor limiting the success of appellation designation is that smokeable flower is decreasing in market share. Extracts, edibles, drinkables, topicals and other methods of consumption are gaining ground quickly, and some believe that ultimately, smoking flower will be the exception, not the rule. Not everyone likes to smell like burnt weed, and many users find smoking irritates the throat. Even “smooth” smoke hits novice users like a hammer and induces coughing and a burning throat.

In short, I believe that given changing consumer preferences, cannabis appellations will become less important over time.

I understand that times are scary for cannabis cultivators. Average prices are falling in all states with competitive markets and more opening licensing schemes. Offers for fresh product here in Cali continue to erode and I fear a nasty close to the season for full-term and late second-run farms that won’t come to market for a couple of months.

Appellation programs are trying to bring demand and economic value back to regions that are struggling. I get it and empathize with that desire. And I truly hope cannabis appellations are a home run for Humboldt and other regions.

But given the risks of further dividing an already fragmented cannabis community, I think a better play is a more inclusive marketing program that highlights the diversity and uniqueness of a cultivation community like Humboldt. Through marketing the diverse microclimates and cultivation methodologies deployed by Humboldt cultivators, we can differentiate ourselves as uniquely positioned to meet consumer needs. One governing or marketing body that encompasses all farmers in the region and tells a diverse, unifying story makes more sense to me. Sun-grown flower, coastal zone living soil indoor, and mountain grown mixed-light are all differentiators we should be proud of and capitalize on as a community.

Much love,

Jesse

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Jesse Duncan is a lifelong Humboldt County resident, a father of six, a retired financial advisor and a full-time commercial cannabis grower. He is also the creator of NorCal Financial and Cannabis Consulting, a no-cost platform that helps small farmers improve their cultivation, business and financial skills. Please check out his blog at, his Instagram at jesse_duncann, and connect with him on Linkedin.