“Sheriff’s Department! Search warrant,” shout armed officers as they enter an estate in the heart of the California desert, where they soon find hundreds of illegal cannabis plants.
Marijuana was fully legalized in the state in 2016 after a public vote, in a move that advocates said would end a huge black market and the crime and nuisance associated with it.
In fact, the sector has grown, with illegal growers lured by the promise of fat profits for operators who don’t have to worry about permits, standards and even paying for their water.
“Around 2016, when the laws started to change, there was a huge increase in illegal crops,” Sergeant Chris Morse told AFP during a recent raid.
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“The model was certainly not perfect.”
Morse and his colleagues from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department conduct six to 10 raids each week, dismantling some of the hundreds of greenhouses that dot the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles.
The facilities allow growers to grow their crop year-round, with a profitable harvest every few months.
“That could bring over $600 a pound” (450 grams) in California once the flowers are processed, Sergeant Chris Bassett said, noting that in states where recreational marijuana is illegal “you’re seeing triple the price.”
Some industrial-sized greenhouses can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
Crime
Illegal farms are found in a variety of California landscapes, from forests to fields to deserts.
Market share for their products dwarfs those sold legally, a sector whose sales have stagnated at about $5 billion a year.
“The explosion of the black market, I would say has a lot to do with the taxation of marijuana in the state of California,” Bassett said.
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“Some of these grow, manufacture, distribute … licenses are over $100,000, which makes it very difficult for someone to actually get into the legal market.”
With such large profits, illegal cannabis cultivation often intersects with more serious crime.
In January, six bullet-riddled bodies were found on a deserted road in San Bernardino County, killings that investigators said were linked to settling scores between rival growers.
But there appears to be little evidence of large-scale organized crime involvement, Bassett said, with many of those arrested being opportunistic criminals from Latin America, Asia or the United States.
“We have people who have been charged with marijuana crimes in the past and then we have people who have no criminal background,” he said.
These groups are constantly playing cat and mouse with the police — and sometimes they’re one step ahead.
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All but one of the five plantations where an AFP team accompanied sheriff’s agents were empty, with growers fleeing before the raid.
Only Clarance Joseph was surprised by armed officers on his land in Newberry Springs, a hamlet off Route 66.
Joseph, an American, told AFP that he has been in business since 2017, thanks to an agreement with a group of Lao people: he let them grow greenhouses on his property and received 20 percent of the profits.
Pesticides
“This is a big loss,” he sighed as police hacked away at the cannabis plants.
“That’s six months of work … I was just flying under the radar, not stepping on anyone’s toes.”
Joseph will likely be summoned to court where he can expect to be fined.
Since legalization, penalties for illegal cultivation have been reduced to a maximum fine of $500 and six months in jail, although law enforcement officers say jail time is very unusual.
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“Unless we find ghost guns or environmental crimes, they’re not in much danger,” says Morsch.
“We file hundreds of pages of reports, so to see penalties so low can be disappointing.”
Many farms are back up and running shortly after the police raid, with some irrigating their crops with water taps or clandestine wells, putting further pressure on drought-plagued California.
Police investigations sometimes turn up harmful pesticides, including substances like carbofuran, a pesticide so toxic that small amounts can kill a large animal.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that ingestion, inhalation or skin absorption affects the central nervous system and can cause diarrhea and convulsions.
“The unfortunate part is that they spray it on the flower itself … which is ultimately ingested by the consumer,” Morsch said.
“If I were a weed smoker, I wouldn’t want to smoke it.”
Source: AFP