Mendo: How an Unlikely Group of Rebels Turned Cannabis Into California's Cash Crop

A whip-smart and entertaining work of narrative history that shows how an unlikely partnership borne of necessity spawned a lucrative marijuana industry that changed the world

California's homegrown weed industry helped launch the solar power industry, and that's not all. Mendocino county--or Mendo--sits within California's Emerald Triangle, a sprawling, sparsely populated region that has produced billions of dollars' worth of weed, and since the 1970s, virtually every inhabitant has either been involved in the pot trade or been a beneficiary of it--including the government.

Mendo was formed by the confluence of back-to-the-land hippies fleeing San Francisco and longtime locals who held more traditional, conservative beliefs. These two groups shared little in common beyond a strong antiauthoritarian streak and a need to create new opportunities after the logging industry retreated from the region. A tight-knit, backwoods, outlaw culture arose from this uncommon alliance. Mendo tells the fascinating and often humorous story of how, for over fifty years, this cabal of iconoclastic characters not only sustained the county through the illegal cultivation of marijuana, but also developed a legal framework that has been adopted in decriminalization efforts across the United States.

Today, Mendo is again on the precipice of economic ruin as the weed industry emerges from the shadows, mirroring challenges faced across the nation where traditional industries that have long sustained working-class communities are in decline, causing suffering, economic strife, and political divisiveness. Mendo, just like the nation, is fighting to find itself in the twenty-first century.

Author: Charlie Harris
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
Published: 06/23/2026
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.89w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781640096912


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/13/2026

About the Author
CHARLIE HARRIS is a writer and researcher from the United Kingdom who has done his time on America's west coast. He left the pot industry for academia, where he has worked since 2018 as a writer for Oxford University's Global History of Capitalism Project.