Xong Vang and Chia Xiong arrived in Douglas City, a town of the Gold Rush era, hoping to make good from the next big California boom.

After the state legalized cannabis in 2016, they joined a wave of newcomers settling in this mountainous, lushly forested Northern California region known to produce some of the world’s best weed. They believed that here in remote Trinity County, they could find their own “Green Rush,” growing pot for what was promised to be a profitable legal market.

Today, the couple are struggling to keep their 3.4-acre farm going. They live in a trailer on the side of a mountain, where they eke out a modest farm life, raising pigeons for eggs. They worry about providing for their children amid what seem like endless delays to regain licenses needed to legally cultivate their cannabis crop.

Their plight is so desperate that Vang and Xiong have resorted to a path they tried to avoid: growing without a county permit.

“People say you live paycheck to paycheck, but there’s no paycheck to live off of,” Xiong said, standing amid budding plants nestled on the slopes of a rugged peak.

They are among hundreds of local cannabis growers entangled in a legal impasse that has kept many from planting and led some to consider joining a thriving underground economy that was supposed to decline after cannabis was legalized by Proposition 64.