Mexifornia State Flower - Revisited

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Originally Posted by Twoller

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7388036.stm

This happened over two years ago.

[Twoller]

Originally Posted by Jeanfromfillmore

This happened over two years ago.

You are right. This is an old article. The article was linked at the bottom of the first article on the huge marijuana bust and I didn't look at the date.

Still, it is worth looking at again. It could have happened yesterday. It could happen again tomorrow. It is all due to our prohibition era approach to the drug problem.

[Ayatollahgondola]

From Fish and Game site today:



http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/news10/20...a-MJ-Raid.html

The Department of Fish and Game (DFG), with support from two other agencies, raided an illegal marijuana garden in Tehama Wildlife Area (TWA) early this morning. Eight thousand marijuana plants were eradicated with an estimated value of $24-32 million. Two 9 mm pistols were recovered from the garden.

Warden Scott Williams, DFG's lead investigator in the operation, headed a team of five game wardens supported by one Special Agent from the Bureau of Land Management and six deputies from the Tehama County Sheriff's Department.

The raid began around 12 a.m. today. A surprise nighttime raid of a pot garden's sleeping area is the most effective way of apprehending suspects in such remote and mountainous conditions. Wardens arrested one suspect, Guillermo Cruz Lopez, 23, of Chiapas, Mexico. A second suspect escaped capture.

Lopez will be charged with cultivating marijuana and possession of marijuana for sale (Health and Safety Code, sections 11358 and 11359) and unlawful activities in a state wildlife area (California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 550[b]). Additional charges will be filed for an illegal water diversion, pollution and other environmental damage. The growers had constructed a cistern for the application of chemical fertilizers or pesticides through the irrigation system. This application method is very dangerous to both wildlife and people who have no idea the water in the pipes is contaminated with chemicals.

TWA, a popular outdoor recreation and hunting area owned by DFG, is east of Red Bluff near the town of Paynes Creek. A hunter discovered and reported a harvested and abandoned marijuana garden in the Antelope Creek drainage during last fall's late season G-1 deer hunt. Game wardens investigated the site and found gardening equipment left behind. The carefully hidden tools and a full irrigation system led them to believe the garden would be used again in the coming spring. DFG began regular surveillance of the garden in March 2010.

Working alongside a federal agent from the Bureau of Land Management and in coordination with Tehama County Sheriff's deputies, DFG wardens observed renewed activity in the garden. Over the course of several months, the wardens were able to locate supply drop locations and map out the garden's infrastructure. Garden workers were also observed tending to the marijuana and retrieving supplies.

Ongoing surveillance indicated increased activity within the garden over the past week, leading the wardens to believe that harvesting had started taking place and processed marijuana was already being removed from the site for distribution.

The tenders of marijuana gardens often possess firearms for personal protection and to illegally take wildlife both for food and to stop animals from damaging the plants. Illegal growers also possess firearms to defend themselves against law enforcement or an unwanted encounter with unwitting outdoor enthusiasts. This creates a grave danger to anyone using state lands set aside for the public's recreational use.

[Rim05]

I would surmise that these gardens are controlled by the Cartels?
I will never know why people will try anything new (drugs of any kind) without knowing what it will do to their bodies or mind. I guess we cannot help everyone.

Glad to hear about any 'grow' being taken down.

[Twoller]

Hmmm... Eight thousand marijuana plants at a black market value of 24-32 million dollars That's 24-32 million divided by 8 thousand for 3-4 thousand dollars a plant.

The more grows they find and bust, the more the black market prices go up. So the stuff they don't find is worth even more. And meanwhile, how much is it costing the taxpayers to have law enforcement running around looking for the stuff being grown mostly by illegal immigrants?

If we decriminalize marijuana, we will have more resources to hunt down illegals so they don't get comfortable enough to do this kind of crap. But of course we are obliged to wait around for them to commit a second crime before we can arrest them for being here illegally. And there are scumbags telling us we can't even do that.

Vote yes on Proposition 19. Destroy the black market in marijuana and watch the cockroaches scramble for crumbs.

[Ayatollahgondola]

Originally Posted by Twoller

Hmmm... Eight thousand marijuana plants at a black market value of 24-32 million dollars That's 24-32 million divided by 8 thousand for 3-4 thousand dollars a plant.

The more grows they find and bust, the more the black market prices go up. So the stuff they don't find is worth even more. And meanwhile, how much is it costing the taxpayers to have law enforcement running around looking for the stuff being grown mostly by illegal immigrants?

If we decriminalize marijuana, we will have more resources to hunt down illegals so they don't get comfortable enough to do this kind of crap. But of course we are obliged to wait around for them to commit a second crime before we can arrest them for being here illegally. And there are scumbags telling us we can't even do that.

Vote yes on Proposition 19. Destroy the black market in marijuana and watch the cockroaches scramble for crumbs.

In legalizing alcohol, we may have removed the crime syndicate from the mix, but the initial problems associated with it remained and grew. Alcoholism remains a big problem in America, and many people who don't use it are injured and killed by those who do each year. The way I see it, we negotiated with the users and got the bad end of the deal. The jails are now full of wife and child beaters, DUI arrestees, Drunk and disorderly arrests, Manslaughter, and many other manifestations of crime born out of the use and abuse of alcohol that when taken in aggregate, dwarf the magnitude of fighting the underworld.

[Twoller]

Originally Posted by Ayatollahgondola

In legalizing alcohol, we may have removed the crime syndicate from the mix, but the initial problems associated with it remained and grew. Alcoholism remains a big problem in America, and many people who don't use it are injured and killed by those who do each year. The way I see it, we negotiated with the users and got the bad end of the deal. The jails are now full of wife and child beaters, DUI arrestees, Drunk and disorderly arrests, Manslaughter, and many other manifestations of crime born out of the use and abuse of alcohol that when taken in aggregate, dwarf the magnitude of fighting the underworld.

But you are assuming that during the prohibition of alcohol that these problems went away. They didn't. And also you assume that just because alcohol was involved in a crime means that alcohol caused the criminal behavior. Furthermore, marijuana nowhere aggrevates behavior like alcohol does. Criminal activity follows marijuana only because of the criminal activity surrounding its black market distribution. Unless you have a "medical" license, the more you smoke, the more likely you are to be close to other criminal activity.

Again, remember the dispensaries. The "medical marijuana" dispensaries are nothing more than a place to sell pot to people with a license to get stoned. Does anyone dispute this? The "medical marijuana" dispensaries have been around for a long time now and we have a fixed population of regular pot smokers who buy as much as they want, any time they want and smoke as much as they want any time they want. If smoking marijuana was such a social hazard like alcohol, then we would be seeing a plague of problems that could easily be traced to the dispensary customers. If anything, the dispensaries have served to isolate users from criminal activity, even when their money goes into the pockets of organzed crime.

Think of countries in the world who have outlawed alcohol, mostly Muslim countries. Would anyone describe these countries as temperate countries, where people live peacably and morally advanced lives. If anything the state has assumed the role of a gangster, imposing cruel and sick punishment on people for the most trivial of crimes.

But even acknowledging that alcohol is a hazardous drug does not impune marijuana. Marijuana is a relatively safe drug compared to alcohol, this is indisputable. If anything we should legalize marijuana, while at the same time further restrict the distributiion of alcohol. I would support this. In many ways, the end of the prohibition of alcohol is incomplete. We need a comprehensive reorganization of our whole strategy of combating all of the socially hazardous vices like alcohol, marijuana and tobacco too.

[Patriotic Army Mom]

Originally Posted by Ayatollahgondola

In legalizing alcohol, we may have removed the crime syndicate from the mix, but the initial problems associated with it remained and grew. Alcoholism remains a big problem in America, and many people who don't use it are injured and killed by those who do each year. The way I see it, we negotiated with the users and got the bad end of the deal. The jails are now full of wife and child beaters, DUI arrestees, Drunk and disorderly arrests, Manslaughter, and many other manifestations of crime born out of the use and abuse of alcohol that when taken in aggregate, dwarf the magnitude of fighting the underworld.

Your right on Ayatolla.

[Patriotic Army Mom]

Saying yes, won't keep it out of the schools! Crap kids sneak in booze too. And cigarettes and porn at times. This would make it easier to sneak it from their parents, or what ever. I've buried several who died at an early age to this stuff, mixed with other stuff, so like Rimo, no one can budge me on this. I don't know what will be the outcome, but it will sure dumb down our children. Even adults. Pot can be addictive. Let the doctors give it out to those that need it, and that will control it.