For all the talk about potency, yield, and branding, the real revolution in cannabis is happening underground—in the living soil. Dig your hands into it and you’ll feel it breathing: earthworms tunneling, mycelium threading through humus, microbes trading nutrients like a microscopic marketplace. This is where the plant’s magic begins.

“Living soil” isn’t a buzzword; it’s a rebellion. As the legal industry chases sterile perfection through hydroponics and chemical control, a growing movement of cultivators is going back to the dirt—not out of nostalgia, but necessity. In their eyes, saving the plant means saving the planet.

What Is Living Soil?

At its simplest, living soil is exactly what it sounds like: soil that’s alive. It’s a self-sustaining ecosystem rich with fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, and organic matter, all cycling nutrients to the plant in exchange for root exudates (the sugars the plant feeds them).

Dr. Elaine Ingham, a pioneering soil microbiologist and founder of the Soil Food Web School, describes healthy soil as operating like a “nutrient banking system” —microbes store and release elements as the plant demands. Her Soil Food Web approach is used by growers who want to restore soil biology rather than override it.

In cannabis cultivation, that relationship is everything. When soil is thriving, plants develop deeper terpene profiles, stronger immune systems, and richer cannabinoid expressions. Living soil doesn’t just grow cannabis. It grows the complexity that makes cannabis cannabis.

The Cannabis Soil Rebellion

The industrialization of legal cannabis has come with a price: uniformity. Across North America, massive hydroponic facilities dominate headlines with LED wattage, square footage, and quarterly yields. Yet for all their gleaming technology, something essential gets lost—the character of the plant.

In contrast, small-scale legacy growers from Northern California’s Emerald Triangle to forests of Maine and Oregon are leading what they call the “soil rebellion.” These cultivators aren’t anti-progress; they’re anti-sterility. Their farms hum with compost-tea brewers instead of air conditioners. Their grow rooms smell of earth, not disinfectant.

To them, living soil is a statement of resistance—a middle finger to the corporate model that treats cannabis like a commodity instead of a culture. They’re not chasing uniformity; they’re chasing vitality.

The Environmental Stakes

Industrial cannabis is quietly becoming one of the most energy-hungry crops in North America. A major study in Nature Sustainability found that indoor cannabis cultivation can generate between 2,283 and 5,184 kilograms of CO₂-equivalent per kilogram of dried flower, largely driven by lighting, HVAC, and environmental control systems.

In some reporting, that’s framed as equivalent to growing one ounce of cannabis indoors having the same emissions as burning 7–16 gallons of gasoline, depending on location.

By contrast, sun-grown and living-soil operations drastically reduce that footprint. No artificial lighting. No chemical runoff. No wasted nutrients. Instead, cultivators build closed-loop systems: composting leftover plant material, capturing rainwater, and encouraging biodiversity that manages pests naturally.

As the planet warms, the cannabis industry faces a choice. Either double down on energy-intensive “clean rooms,” or return to the soil systems that sustained the plant for millennia. The growers choosing the latter aren’t Luddites; they’re the real innovators.

Microbes, Mycelium, and Medicine

Living soil isn’t just an environmental win—it’s an alchemical one. Beneath the surface, a web of mycorrhizal fungi extends far beyond the roots, exchanging minerals for sugars and transmitting chemical signals between plants. It’s the internet of the earth, and cannabis thrives in that connectivity.

Terpenes, the aromatic compounds that define each strain’s scent and therapeutic profile, are heavily influenced by soil biology. Plants grown in biologically active soils often show higher terpene diversity and potency than those grown in sterile hydro systems. (See studies in Frontiers in Plant Science and other journals correlating soil microbial diversity with improved secondary metabolites.)

The rhizosphere—the narrow soil layer immediately surrounding the roots—is where most of that chemical exchange happens. Roots exude sugars and organic acids that feed microbes, which in turn break down nutrients and make them available to the plant.

In short, the microbes matter. When cultivators nurture the unseen world underfoot, they’re amplifying not just yield but medicine, but producing flower that’s chemically richer, more aromatic, and more effective for the end user.

Farmers as the New Counterculture

It’s tempting to view the living-soil movement as a trend, but talk to the people building compost piles at midnight or experimenting with Korean natural farming techniques, and you’ll hear a different tone: one of defiance.

These are farmers who see themselves as stewards, not suppliers. They reject synthetic control because it mirrors the same top-down systems that outlawed cannabis in the first place. Living soil, to them, is a political act. An assertion of autonomy and connection in an industry increasingly run by spreadsheets.

This isn’t hippie nostalgia. It’s a science-backed rebellion with cultural roots stretching to the earliest cannabis communities. The living-soil movement echoes the same anti-establishment ethos that made cannabis a symbol of resistance in the 1960s and ’70s. Only now, the battleground isn’t in the streets—it’s beneath our feet.

The Return to the Roots

Every few years, the cannabis industry reinvents its buzzwords: “craft,” “premium,” “sustainable.” But the growers working in living soil aren’t selling trends; they’re rebuilding relationships. To them, soil is sacred. It’s the link between plant, person, and planet. It’s a partnership that industrial models can’t replicate.

And maybe that’s the real message of living soil. Beneath the debates over legalization, taxes, and potency lies a simple truth: what we grow reflects how we live. If we cultivate sterile, extractive systems, we’ll get sterile, extractive results. But when we nurture life—in the soil, in our communities, in our politics—we harvest something far more powerful.

The next revolution in cannabis isn’t coming from boardrooms or branding agencies. It’s already happening in the ground—quiet, humble, unstoppable.

The president of Colombia says U.S. President Donald Trump should replace the policy of marijuana prohibition with a regulatory framework allowing for adult use and international cannabis exports.

In an post on X last week, Colombian President Gustavo Petro addressed broader drug policy issues amid a broader feud between the two leaders over the Trump administration’s military strikes against boats alleged to be trafficking narcotics.

“Colombia actually provides the money and the deaths in the struggle, while the U.S. provides the consumption,” Petro said, according to a translation. “Consumption in the U.S. and the growing consumption in Europe are responsible for 300,000 murders in Colombia and a million deaths in Latin America.”

But he also said he proposed to Trump “the opposite” of what the administration is currently doing—by removing tariffs on Colombian agriculture goods and legalizing the “export of cannabis” like “any good,” for example. Petro said that reform could be justified by the United Nations’s decision to reschedule cannabis under international treaties to which both countries are parties.

Trump should also “strengthen the policy of prevention of consumption in the U.S.” and “scientifically study whether prohibition is necessary, or rather responsible and state-regulated consumption build a more effective treaty for the pursuit of narcos’ capital and assets in the world,” the Colombian president said, as High Times first reported.

Trump last week called Petro an “illegal drug leader” and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the Colombian president, members of his family and his advisors for alleged involvement in drug trafficking.

This comes months after Colombian lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that would nationally legalize marijuana—with a House committee in August taking the first step in an extensive legislative process to enact the reform.

Petro has consistently supported legalizing cannabis—and he’s put pressure on legislators to advance the issue. He said in late 2023 that lawmakers who voted to shelve a legalization bill that year only helped to perpetuate illegal drug trafficking and the violence associated with the unregulated trade.

After a visit to the U.S. in 2023, the Colombian president recalled smelling the odor of marijuana wafting through the streets of New York City, remarking on the “enormous hypocrisy” of legal cannabis sales now taking place in the nation that launched the global drug war decades ago.

Petro also took a lead role at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs in 2023, noting Colombia and Mexico “are the biggest victims of this policy,” likening the drug war to “a genocide.”

In 2022, Petro delivered a speech at a meeting of the UN, urging member nations to fundamentally change their approaches to drug policy and disband with prohibition.

He’s also talked about  the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia as one means of reducing the influence of the illicit market. And he has signaled that the policy change should be followed by releasing people who are currently in prison over cannabis.

Trump, for his part, has not embraced federal legalization, though he said in late August that a decision on a pending marijuana rescheduling proposal would come within weeks. Much of his drug policy actions of late have focused on cartels, with controversial extrajudicial attacks on boats in international waters that were allegedly transporting drugs to the U.S.

Image element courtesy of Bryan Pocius.

A bipartisan coalition of 39 state and territory attorneys general is calling on Congress to clarify the federal definition of hemp and impose regulations preventing the sale of intoxicating cannabinoid products.

In a letter sent to the Republican chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations and Agriculture Committees on Friday, members of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) expressed concerns with provisions of the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp, which they said has been “wrongly exploited by bad actors to sell recreational synthetic THC products across the country.”

They’re asking that lawmakers leverage the appropriations process, or the next iteration of the Farm Bill, to enact policy changes that “leave no doubt that these harmful products are illegal and that their sale and manufacture are criminal acts.”

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R), Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D), Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) led the letter, underscoring the bipartisan sentiment driving the call for congressional action.

“Intoxicating hemp-derived THC products have inundated communities throughout our states due to a grievously mistaken interpretation of the 2018 Farm Bill’s definition of ‘hemp’ that companies are leveraging to pursue profits at the expense of public safety and health,” they wrote. “Many of these products—created by manufacturers by manipulating hemp to produce synthetic THC—are more intoxicating and psychoactive than marijuana a Schedule I controlled substance and are often marketed to minors.”

While the debate over revising federal hemp laws has been a consistent talking point this year, with attempts in both chambers to enact a ban on products containing THC, so far such restrictions have only been implemented at the state level.

“Unless Congress acts, this gross distortion of the 2018 Farm Bill’s hemp provision will continue to fuel the rapid growth of an under-regulated industry that threatens public health and safety and undermines law enforcement nationwide,” the letter says.

“Congress never meant to legalize these products in the 2018 Farm Bill. A proper interpretation of the Farm Bill’s hemp provision demonstrates that the entire synthetic THC industry rests on a foundation of illicit conduct,” it continues. “Clear direction from Congress is needed to shut down this industry before it metastasizes further into an even greater threat to public safety than it already is.”

The top state and territory law enforcement officials raised the alarm about the fact that, while hemp is defined as cannabis containing no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight, the natural cannabinoids in hemp such as CBD can be synthesized into intoxicating compounds such as delta-8 THC, delta-10 THC and HHC.

“In this way, legal, nonintoxicating hemp is used to make Frankenstein THC products that get adults high and harm and even kill children,” they said.

“State efforts to outlaw hemp-derived psychoactive products to protect their citizens cannot solve this problem. Such efforts can only lead to an uneven and ineffectual patchwork of bans and regulations that differ from State to State and will not stop the flood of mail-order THC products from streaming through interstate commerce. Congress must act to salvage the 2018 Farm Bill’s laudable legalization of commercial hemp from the psychoactive hemp industry’s spoliation of the Bill’s hemp provision.”

Other signatories on the letter include the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming.

“Importantly, the prohibition on products containing intoxicating levels of THC—of any kind and no matter how it is derived—will not inhibit the cultivation of hemp for industrial and agricultural uses since hemp does not contain intoxicating levels of THC,” they said. “The original goal of the 2018 Farm Bill’s hemp provision can still be effectuated while Congress also eliminates the dangerous and illegal drug market that has been created through incorrect interpretations of the Farm Bill.”

“We commend your commitment to American farmers and your work to create an orderly and well-regulated market for industrial hemp and non-intoxicating hemp-derived products,” the letter concludes. “You should not allow irresponsible corporations to take advantage of your good work to purvey dangerous products in our States. We ask Congress to act decisively to clarify the Farm Bill’s definition of hemp to ensure intoxicating THC products are taken off the market.”

That’s a particularly bold ask that industry stakeholders say could jeopardize the hemp market altogether. While there’s generally consensus around the idea that intoxicating cannabinoid products shouldn’t be accessible to youth or sold in an unregulated manner, businesses feel a middle-ground with age-gating and rules to ensure certain safety and advertising standards are met would be a superior approach.

Meanwhile, a GOP senator is hoping to replace a proposed ban on hemp THC products with alternate appropriations language mandating a study into state regulatory models for consumable cannabinoids. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is circulating legislative language that he’s asking to be adopted as part of the final package.

The agriculture appropriations measure the Senate passed as part of a package over the summer initially contained provisions hemp industry stakeholders said would effectively eradicate the market by banning consumable hemp products with any “quantifiable” amount of THC. But after the measure came out of committee, Paul threatened to hold up its passage over the issue, and the language was removed.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who ushered in the federal legalization of hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill, championed the THC criminalization language and took to the floor to criticize those who opposed the ban, including Paul.

Meanwhile, Paul recently filed a standalone bill that would go in the opposite direction of the hemp ban, proposing to triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations.

The senator introduced the legislation, titled the Hemp Economic Mobilization Plan (HEMP) Act, in June. It mirrors versions he’s sponsored over the last several sessions.