Posted on 10/22/2021 9:34:46 AM PDT by mylife
Legalizing recreational marijuana was always bound to cause unintended consequences, including more traffic accidents, addiction, and worse mental health issues. But Jackson County, Oregon, has added another downside to the list: severe water shortages.
It turns out that when Oregon voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2014, southern Oregon saw a surge of illegal marijuana farms posing as legal hemp farms. The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission recently reported that nearly 50% of registered hemp farms inspected by the state grow marijuana with THC content above the legal limits.
With marijuana “legal” in Oregon now, these illegal farms operate with near impunity next to Oregon’s highly regulated marijuana market. And now that Western states have been hit with a drought, these illegal farmers are illegally stealing water from the surrounding creeks and wells that legal fruit and nut farmers have been using for generations. One illegal cannabis farm recently raided by authorities was illegally drawing water from the Illinois River to feed over 72,000 marijuana plants.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Pretty wet right now. Outdoor harvests are probably over.
Jackson County rivers are dependent on snowmelt. Water for agriculture is an issue.
Oh yeah? I live here.
It’s destroying two counties. The transnational cartels who are growing most of these illegal grow ops use vast quantities of toxic chemicals which go into the streams, rivers, ground water, kill large numbers of animals, steal water, commit crimes, bring illegals and criminals with them to grow the stuff, etc.
There are at least 2000 illegal grows in my county, as many or more in the next.
Most are hoop houses. So the criminals can grow 2 crops a year.
You don’t live here, appparently. Only rainforest is in northwest WA.
I live in OR and there is no doubt that politicians are getting bribed to tolerate it. Lot of handwringing and proposals but little is done. Out of 2000 plus criminal ops, maybe 5 have been busted. Big freaking deal. Good legislators and others have begged the maggot perv she-governor Brownshirt to call in the National Guard but she hasn’t. She is a filthy criminal.
Yes...I live in Oregon...contemptible
Be temping to walk the river and wreck some pumps.
No kidding. But these criminals are mostly cartel members - Mexican, Russian and Bulgarian, I’ve heard. They are very heavily armed. The busts that happened had over 100 LE - sheriffs, state cops, DEA, other kind of feds. Crossing these criminals can get one killed. Naturally crime of all kinds has gone through the roof, and LE is usually 30 minutes away.
I’ve lived here for 21 years and have never seen anything like this. People are extremely angry. And because of EffJoeBitem plus the maggot she-Governor, no one can be deported, no matter how bad of a criminal they are. OR is a sanctuary state (puke) and elections have been stolen for at least 2 decades. Illegals vote here en masse as well.
People who live here understand.
Yes, which is in the Pacific northwest, as I said.
NW WA is not where the huge illegal transnational cartel mj grows are causing massive destruction.
100s of miles away.
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