Despite legalization, marijuana continues to be a problem on the black market in California.
California’s Department of Cannabis Control recently announced authorities had seized more than $5.2 million worth of illegal marijuana products from indoor cultivation sites in a single county. Law enforcement reportedly confiscated more than 5,400 illegal marijuana plants along with weapons, cash, and other items.
This year, California’s Unified Cannabis Enforcement Task Force has seized nearly $200 million of dollars worth of illicit marijuana across the state.
Time and again, news outlets and law enforcement reports have shown that legalizing marijuana actually emboldens drug cartels and fuels the black market.
Chinese organized crime is dominating black market marijuana in states where marijuana is legal.
The U.S. Department of Justice says Chinese drug cartels may be making millions of dollars from illegal marijuana in states like Maine, New York, Massachusetts, and elsewhere.
CNN writes that “illegal pot production . . . provides a glimpse of a hidden world – one that mirrors a trend playing out not only in California, but in states such as Oklahoma, Oregon, New Mexico and Maine: groups of people with apparent ties to foreign countries – most notably China – producing weed in colossal volumes.”
A CBS News segment last year highlighted how Chinese investment is driving illegal marijuana production across the U.S.
CBN reported last year that Chinese investors with “suitcases full of cash” are buying U.S. farmland to grow black market marijuana.
NPR has reported how illegal immigrants from China “are taking jobs at hundreds of cannabis farms springing up across the U.S.”
Other correspondents have reported how these illegal marijuana operations contribute to “modern day slavery on American soil.”
And illegal marijuana produced in states like California and Oklahoma appears to be making its way into states like Arkansas. All of this underscores why it is so important that Arkansans have resisted efforts to legalize marijuana.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
