Did you ever see that news special on ABC a few years ago where ABC visited a town in rural Georgia and found that even senior citizen farmers were growing it because it was the only way they could keep their farms? I'm talking about 70 - 80 year old church going men.
When the town's police chief (or maybe it was the county sherrif) attempted to crack down, the town forced him out of office and elected a guy that promised to focus on real crime. According to the report, growing and selling pot was the only thing keeping this town afloat, and if the sherrif cracked down as he promised, it would have put local businesses out of business. They interviewed the old sherrif and he had turned into a mobile home salesman. behahahahahahaha. Ya gotta love it. When the fired sherrif whined to the feds and they came down to investigate, they received absolutely no assistance from the local LEO's, and in fact the local LEO's actually thwarted the fed's. I was pleasantly shocked to see that there are LEO's that remember that they work for the citizens and not the feds.
I sure would like to know what happened with those folks. I bet after ABC aired the program, the feds went down their in force and put a stop to a lot of it. Can't have the peasants thumbing their noses at the almighty G*D of government.
I would bet this happens in more rural towns than the one shown on ABC. Politics goes out the door when businessmen need business.
In my old home of Tulare County, that is exactly right. Odd place, it is. Tulare County had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, one of the largest amounts of pot grown in the nation, and my town, Dinuba, had(?) more churches per capita than any other town in the country.
http://www.arcataeye.com/police/