A BIT ABOUT THE LEGALIZATION OF POT FROM ONE OF THE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES IN WHICH I SERVED

Black market cannabis thrives in California despite legalization

The marijuana gold rush has attracted Mexican drug cartels

 

By Martin Kaste 

 

Houston Public Media 

Apr 5, 2024

 

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco says marijuana legalization has increased incentives for unlicensed cannabis farms and associated violent crime

Cannabis raids are still happening in rural Riverside County. On a Tuesday morning, the sheriff's department's Marijuana Enforcement Team leads a ten-vehicle convoy through the outskirts of the town of Perris. They're following up on a tip about a house hidden at the end of a private drive. The operation commander, Sgt. Jeremy Parsons, comes out to the main road to report that it is, indeed, an illegal grow.

"When we went up to the house we could smell marijuana. We found a greenhouse in the backyard which contained a few hundred small marijuana plants," he says. They also found guns, and they run the names of two people on the site to see if either one is a felon, and not allowed to have a firearm.

"There's not a lot of criminal consequences [for illegally growing marijuana]," Parsons says. But the strategy here is to try to charge growers with other crimes — that's why the convoy of vehicles was so long, as it included people from California Fish and Wildlife, the local water board and even code inspectors.

 

Riverside County Sheriff Department Sgt. Jeremy Parsons collects cannabis clippings and firearms from an unlicensed greenhouse in Perris, Calif. 

 

"That's what we're charging these people with: water contamination, pesticides that are illegal, the fertilizers that are illegal. That's where we're getting people," says Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco.

But for Bianco, the bigger issue is legalization itself. He's against it, because he believes it encourages the illegal pot farms in the hills of Riverside County.

"It made it worse. One hundred percent, it made it worse," he says.

A big problem, as he sees it, is exports. California has become a major exporter to states where marijuana is still illegal — and fetches a higher price — despite the warning from the Justice Department back when legalization got started that the states that legalize pot should make sure to keep it inside their borders.

Bianco says the marijuana gold rush has attracted Mexican drug cartels and Asian human smuggling rings.

"I mean, we've had multiple, multiple homicides, we've had multiple kidnappings, we've had multiple reports of human trafficking and rapes and the punishments that go with not doing your job — and it's all related to this," Bianco says.