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http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Amid-pot-legalization-push-new-focus-on-12185361.php
Police crack down on black-market pot to protect regulated growers
By The Chronicle's PETER FIMRITE:
"The caravan of law enforcement trucks bounced over a dusty old logging road through redwood groves, across the Noyo River and along tracks used by the beloved Skunk Train, before stopping next to a sign that read “Family Camp.”
There, in hillside clearings cut from the forest, was the target of a raid in August by a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office task force: 811 bright green marijuana plants.
Digging deeper, the deputies found an illegal assault rifle and two other guns, a makeshift hash oil lab and pumps stealing water from the river — common trappings within a black market for pot that is still thriving in Mendocino, Humboldt and other northern counties despite the industry going legal.
Now, law enforcement agencies have a new focus for crackdowns that have happened with varying intensity over the years. They’re trying to protect the regulated, taxed marijuana market as California prepares for legal sales of recreational pot starting as soon as January. For some officials, the sentiment is: The state should get what it voted for.
But as the recent ride-along with members of the Sheriff’s Office suggested, busting illegal cannabis is as difficult as ever. Bootleg ganja has been circulating around Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties — the famed Emerald Triangle — for decades, and backwoods growing is ingrained in the culture.
Legalization of weed under Proposition 64, which passed in November, has catapulted thousands of growers into the frenzied forefront of a new retail industry, but the black market endures. For example, about 8,000 outdoor growers produce weed in Humboldt County, but only a little more than 2,300 have filed applications under the county’s medical marijuana permit process.
“What we’re seeing up here is that the temptation, the incentives for compliance, are apparently not there for a lot of people,” said Josh Meisel, a sociology professor and co-director of the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research. “So what is it that is making people not want to be licensed? Is it the cost, the bureaucracy, is it because they just want to remain under the radar?”
At least for now, law enforcement officials in Mendocino County and other areas are using a triage strategy — concentrating on unpermitted grows that are harming the environment."
I think most bootleg growers in the Triangle don't want to paper up because of the growing limits placed on legal growers
Police crack down on black-market pot to protect regulated growers
By The Chronicle's PETER FIMRITE:
"The caravan of law enforcement trucks bounced over a dusty old logging road through redwood groves, across the Noyo River and along tracks used by the beloved Skunk Train, before stopping next to a sign that read “Family Camp.”
There, in hillside clearings cut from the forest, was the target of a raid in August by a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office task force: 811 bright green marijuana plants.
Digging deeper, the deputies found an illegal assault rifle and two other guns, a makeshift hash oil lab and pumps stealing water from the river — common trappings within a black market for pot that is still thriving in Mendocino, Humboldt and other northern counties despite the industry going legal.
Now, law enforcement agencies have a new focus for crackdowns that have happened with varying intensity over the years. They’re trying to protect the regulated, taxed marijuana market as California prepares for legal sales of recreational pot starting as soon as January. For some officials, the sentiment is: The state should get what it voted for.
But as the recent ride-along with members of the Sheriff’s Office suggested, busting illegal cannabis is as difficult as ever. Bootleg ganja has been circulating around Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties — the famed Emerald Triangle — for decades, and backwoods growing is ingrained in the culture.
Legalization of weed under Proposition 64, which passed in November, has catapulted thousands of growers into the frenzied forefront of a new retail industry, but the black market endures. For example, about 8,000 outdoor growers produce weed in Humboldt County, but only a little more than 2,300 have filed applications under the county’s medical marijuana permit process.
“What we’re seeing up here is that the temptation, the incentives for compliance, are apparently not there for a lot of people,” said Josh Meisel, a sociology professor and co-director of the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research. “So what is it that is making people not want to be licensed? Is it the cost, the bureaucracy, is it because they just want to remain under the radar?”
At least for now, law enforcement officials in Mendocino County and other areas are using a triage strategy — concentrating on unpermitted grows that are harming the environment."
I think most bootleg growers in the Triangle don't want to paper up because of the growing limits placed on legal growers
