Posted on 07/15/2021 12:10:32 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Before his corpse was dumped in a shallow grave 50 miles north of Los Angeles, Mauricio Ismael Gonzalez-Ramirez was held prisoner at one of the hundreds of black-market pot farms that have exploded across California’s high desert in the last several years, authorities say.
He worked in what has become California’s newest illegal marijuana haven: the Mojave Desert. A world away from the lush forest groves of the “Emerald Triangle” of Northern California, this hot, dry, unforgiving climate has attracted more than a thousand marijuana plantations that fill the arid expanse between the Antelope Valley and the Colorado River.
It’s an unprecedented siege that has upended life in the remote desert communities and vast tract developments that overlook Joshua trees and scrub. Authorities say the boom has led to forced labor, violence, water theft and the destruction of fragile desert habitat and wildlife.
Longtime residents say they feel less safe, claiming black-market growers act with impunity by carrying weapons, trading gunfire with rivals and threatening those who wander too close to their farms.
“When our family moved to Twentynine Palms nine years ago, it was peaceful and calm,” said Amy Tessier, 38. “The invasion of pot farms changed all that. … We don’t go for walks under the stars anymore. It just doesn’t feel safe.”
Many of these illicit farms are run by criminal organizations, according to federal drug agents, and often rely on the labor of undocumented immigrants like Gonzalez-Ramirez.
Enlisted by growers from his hometown in Mexico, the 26-year-old tended marijuana plants for perhaps as long as a month and a half at a makeshift greenhouse on the outskirts of Lake Los Angeles, where he was held against his will, prosecutors say, by means of “violence, menace, fraud and deceit.”
(Excerpt) Read more at bakersfield.com ...
A front end loader could make short work of that operation.
From what recent visitors to Colorado told me they liked being able to buy weed vape cartridges in the store there instead of bud.
I’m astounded they can grow good marijuana in a desert.
“the myriad of studies AND common sense that says otherwise”
Post links to a few of those “myriad of studies”. Remember: YOUR claim, YOUR homework.
Just google "harmful effects of smoking pot"...but you go ahead and keep picking at nits while the dinosaur in the room of you promoting a leftist cause designed to destroy western culture sits right on top of you...
There is a formula to growing. My son has a hemp farm. I have several plants in process(legal in VA now). I am basically learning by doing it incorrectly but they will produce anyway. The difference between hemp and MJ is you have to keep the hemp from producing THC. Stressing the plants increases the THC and I bet a desert is good for that.
‘Just google “harmful effects of smoking pot”..’
You change your claim with every post: from ads said pot is a wonder drug, to websites claim false health benefits for pot, and now pot has harmful effects. Each new claim never supports your previous claims - and your latest claim, while correct, fails to distinguish pot from many approved drugs with negative side effects, or from alcohol or tobacco. In a free society, harmful things aren’t banned but appropriately labeled, and adult buyers are free to exercise their judgment.
Everything I said was true. You're just trying to discredit it because I'm not listing EVERY single reference on the internet. Even if I did that you would STILL stick to your ludicrous and misleading assertions that pot is some kind of fantastic wonder drug and that's why it should be legal.
And once again SILENCE means ASSENT. You STILL will not address WHY the left WANTS and PROMOTES this line of thought. I KNOW why they do. They want to destroy western culture. Conservatives want to CONSERVE that culture.
A better question is WHY are you promoting it? Why are you carrying the lefts message and spreading their lies and propaganda about pot?
Answer the question and quit going off in the weeds on stupid non-points.
“your ludicrous and misleading assertions that pot is some kind of fantastic wonder drug”
I never asserted that (nor even implied it) - you’ve sunk from unsupported ever-changing claims to outright lying.
You're dancing around again. Your every post DEFENDING the legalization and normalization of a leftist cause screams that you support that leftist cause. It's even worse IF you don't truly believe that smoking pot increases lung function. If you believed that you would at least be an idiot. But if you don't and STILL promote it you're a leftist shill.
As I predicted years ago. And the same politicians will begin to treat the legal product like tobacco and restrict its usage and tax it higher to “save the children “ etc.
Thus massively increasing more black markets. Sort of like today where most people buy it illegally already.
Politician stupidity. They never understand consequences.
Fully legalized they will over regulate and tax it and grow black markets.
Like tobacco in NY.
>>As I predicted years ago. And the same politicians will begin to treat the legal product like tobacco and restrict its usage and tax it higher to “save the children “ etc.
Thus massively increasing more black markets. Sort of like today where most people buy it illegally already.<<
That is what happened. CA taxes are so onerous that no one will pay them if you can get a better product in the alley for 1/3 the price.
Once it is in your hand there is no crime so there is no downside. Same for the seller. Tax evasion is the worst they can get.
Watch, they’ll come out with “Tax Stamps” and pass a lawc saying your product must have a stamp. Of course it’s stupid and only buyers will be stamp collectors.
North Carolna did the same in 1988 and pot was and is illegal in the state. It was a joke.
I never asserted that (nor even implied it) - you’ve sunk from unsupported ever-changing claims to outright lying.
Your every post DEFENDING the legalization
Never on the basis that it's a wonder drug - that remains your lie.
Free clue - I've already posted my argument for legalization: "In a free society, harmful things aren’t banned but appropriately labeled, and adult buyers are free to exercise their judgment."
and normalization
Another lie from you - I have never defended the normalization of marijuana.
Sure. It might be semantics, but I think of of products with too much expensive regulatory burden as not fully legal, despite the language used in the law. That’s why I wrote “quasi-legal.”
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