Every fall, thousands of young people from the Bay Area — many of them recent college graduates or underemployed folks looking for spare cash — hitch a ride north on 101 to work as trimmers for the marijuana farmers in the Emerald Triangle. “Trimming,” as the work is known informally, encompasses the processing and preparing of cannabis for sale and shipment, and it’s repetitive work that involves a lot of careful cutting and harvesting.
Even with the passage of Proposition 64, these trimming jobs exist in a legal gray area — remember, pot is still illegal federally — and hence the work can be risky. Rarely, if ever, does any legal paperwork get signed, and the pay can be intermittent. Trimming work is repetitive, physically intense and often causes carpal-tunnel-like health issues. If workers are harassed, abused or go unpaid, there is nowhere to turn. And many, perhaps even a majority, of the workers are women.
So why do so many people risk their futures — or even their lives — to work long days (and sometimes nights) trimming up north? In short, because the earnings can be grand: trimmers I spoke to described being able to make $300 a day or more if they stay focused.
Given that this is a pretty common gig for so many Bay Area locals, there is surprisingly little literature about what the experience is actually like. I spoke to several different people who had worked as trimmers about what their days were like. All were women — according to their accounts, it was much easier for women to get this work than men.
Note: names and identifying details have been changed, given the sensitive nature of the work.
