75 Percent of Indoor Pot Plants Come From California
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It has been reported that California grows more weed than it knows what to do with. Now, we’re realizing that the wild, wondrous and illegal weed that once bloomed in the California’s many national forests and other outdoor locations is being cultivated indoors under LED lights with all sorts of other technologies.
And, they’re getting busted like crazy.
Federal statistics showed that in 2016, authorities seized 313,000 plants from indoor operations in California, which made up 75 percent of all indoor plants nabbed nationwide, according to the DEA.
So, not only is California growing more weed than it can use, it’s growing most of the rest of the country’s illegal weed. Maybe we already knew that, too.
Although the total accounts for only eight percent of all seizures in California, it’s the highest total in at least the past eight years.
Gearing up to have enough to go around for January’s legalization? That could be it.
A DEA spokeswoman in San Francisco, per the Sacramento Bee, said she was “unable to speculate” why authorities are seizing more indoor-grown marijuana. She noted that the figures come from local, as well as federal, law enforcement agencies.
A November 2016 DEA report indicated that indoor marijuana grows were on the rise because “indoor production is more difficult for law enforcement to discover and has the advantage of not having to rely on climate conditions or growing seasons.”
Last month, law enforcement agencies reported four separate busts of indoor growing operations in the Sacramento area. Authorities seized a total of more than 7,000 plants and arrested several suspects.
Natural Progression Or Police Repression? Legal Outdoor Growers Are Still Getting Harassed.
Recently at least 15 “growers with county permits” or pending permit applications were raided by law enforcement who proceeded to eradicate their crops.
The California Growers Association said that on those occasions it was the Fish and Wildlife wardens ripping out their plants, apparently convinced that some environmental sin had been committed.
At the end of summer, heavily armed and highly trained law enforcement teams were scouring the Sacramento area for illegal grows.
In one of their recent sweeps, reported the Sacramento Bee, the leader of a Rastafarian church was among 18 people arrested when the sheriff’s office swooped in with search warrants at 12 alleged illegal grow sites.
To grow or not to grow…and where?
It’s not a good sign that as California prepares for legalization, the DEA and the cops are still dedicating so many resources to hunting down marijuana grows—indoor and outdoor —all over the state.
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