Beautiful Virgin Islands

Friday, Aug 08, 2025

California expands largest US illegal pot eradication effort

California expands largest US illegal pot eradication effort

With California’s four-year-old legal marijuana market in disarray, the state’s top prosecutor said Tuesday that he will try a new broader approach to disrupting illegal pot farms that undercut the legal economy and sow widespread environmental damage.
The state will expand its nearly four-decade multi-agency seasonal eradication program — the largest in the U.S. that this year scooped up nearly a million marijuana plants — into a year-round effort aimed at investigating who is behind the illegal grows. The new program will attempt to prosecute underlying labor crimes, environmental crimes and the underground economy centered around the illicit cultivations, said Attorney General Rob Bonta.

He called it “an important shift in mindset and in mission” aimed at also aiding California’s faltering legal market by removing dangerous competition.

“The illicit marketplace outweighs the legal marketplace” Bonta said. “It’s upside down and our goal is complete eradication of the illegal market.”

In keeping with the new approach, the annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting ( CAMP ) program started under Republican Gov. George Deukmejian in 1983 will become a permanent Eradication and Prevention of Illicit Cannabis (EPIC) task force, Bonta said.

CAMP began in “a very different time, a different era, a different moment during the failed war on drugs and (at) a time when cannabis was still entirely illegal,” Bonta said.

The seasonal eradication program, which lasts about 90 days each summer, still will continue with the cooperation of other federal, state and local agencies. They include the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, National Park Service, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California State Parks and the California National Guard, some of which will also participate in the new task force, he said.

The task force will work with state Department of Justice prosecutors, the department’s Cannabis Control Section and an existing Tax Recovery in the Underground Economy ( TRUE ) task force that was created by law in 2020, all with the goal of filing civil and criminal cases against those behind illegal grows.

Federal and state prosecutors in California have long tried, without much success, to target the organized crime cartels behind the hidden farms rather than the often itinerant laborers hired to tend and guard the often remote marijuana plots scattered across public and private land.

The laborers frequently live in crude camps with no running water or sewers and use caustic pesticides to kill animals that might otherwise eat the growing plants. But the pollution they leave behind has spread into downstream water supplies and the pesticides can spread up through the food chain.

The workers are victims of human trafficking, Bonta said, “living in squalid conditions alone for months on end and with no way out. These are not the people who are profiting from the illegal cannabis industry. They’re being abused, they’re the victims. They are cogs in a much bigger and more organized machine.”

For example, about 80% of the 44 illegal grow sites found on and around Bureau of Land Management properties this year were connected to drug trafficking organizations, said Karen Mouritsen, the bureau’s California state director.

“It’s clear that there are big challenges with respect to organized crime,” Bonta said. But he said he expects better results this time because the new year-round effort by multiple agencies “will make a big dent, a bit splash and lots of noise about our common priority to address the illicit marketplace, including at the highest levels.”

Bonta is running to keep his job from Republican challenger and former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman in next month’s election. He is taking a familiar recent approach by Democrats nationwide in concentrating on dealers who provide illegal drugs rather than the users who support the underground economy. President Joe Biden last week said he is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law, while San Francisco officials announced a new effort to curb open drug dealing.

The year-round approach “is long since overdue,” Hochman said. “Only by hitting illegal drug growers where it hurts, by seizing their plants and their proceeds, will California be able to help the legal cannabis industry survive and thrive.”

For those trying to exist under the legal market approved by California voters in 2016, the problem has been falling pot prices, restricted sales, high taxes despite the recent repeal of the cannabis cultivation tax, and the fact that buyers can find better bargains in the booming underground marketplace.

Aside from the nearly 1 million plants that Bonta valued at about $1 billion, this year’s eradication program seized more than 100 tons of processed marijuana, 184 weapons and about 33 tons of materials used to cultivate the plants, including dams, water lines and containers of toxic chemicals including pesticides and fertilizers.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Increases Reward for Arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro to Fifty Million Dollars
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
OpenAI Launches GPT‑5, Its Most Advanced AI Model Yet
Embarrassment in Britain: Homelessness Minister Evicted Tenants and Forced to Resign
President Trump nominated Stephen Miran, his top economic adviser and a critic of the Federal Reserve, to temporarily fill an open Fed seat
The AI-Powered Education Revolution: Market Potential and Transformative Impact
Chikungunya Virus Outbreak in Southern China: Over 7,000 Hospitalized
French wine makers have seen catastrophic damage to vines that were almost ready to be harvested after the worst fires in more than 70 years burned through the south of the country
US Lawmaker Probes Intel CEO’s China Ties Amid National Security Concerns
Brazilian President Lula says he’ll contact the leaders of BRICS states to propose a unified response to U.S. tariffs
Trump Open to Meeting Putin as Soon as Next Week, with Possible Trilateral Summit Including Zelenskiy
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau spark dating rumors, joining high stakes world of celeb-politician romances
US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow to seek a breakthrough in the Ukraine war ahead of President Trump’s peace deadline
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Karol Nawrocki Inaugurated as Poland’s President, Setting Stage for Clash with Tusk Government
Trump Signals JD Vance as ‘Most Likely’ MAGA Successor for 2028
US Charges Two Chinese Nationals for Illegal Nvidia AI Chip Exports
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
U.S. Tariff Policy Triggers Market Volatility Amid Growing Global Trade Tensions
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
Representative Greene Urges H-1B Visa Cuts Amid U.S.-India Trade Tensions
U.S. House Committee Subpoenas Clintons and Senior Officials in Epstein Investigation
Sydney Sweeney Registered as Republican as Controversial American Eagle Ad Sparks Debate
Trump Accuses Major Banks of Politically Motivated Account Denials and Prepares Executive Order
TikTok Removes Huda Kattan Video Over Anti-Israel Conspiracy Claims
Trump Threatens Tariffs on India Over Russian Oil Imports
German Finance Minister Criticizes Trump’s Attacks on Institutions
U.S. Proposes Visa Bond of Up to $15,000 for Some Applicants
U.S. Farmers Increase Lobbying Amid Immigration Crackdown
Elon Musk Receives $23.7 Billion Tesla Stock Award
Texas House Paralyzed After Democrats Walk Out Over Redistricting
Mexican Cartels Complicate Sheinbaum’s U.S. Security Talks
Mark Zuckerberg Declares War on the iPhone
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
Tesla Seeks Shareholder Approval for $29 Billion Compensation Package for Elon Musk
Nvidia is cutting prices on its RTX 50-series graphics cards after sales slowed and inventories piled up
Ghislaine Maxwell Transferred to Minimum-Security Prison Amid Ongoing DOJ Discussions
U.S. Tariffs Surge to Highest Levels in Nearly a Century Under Second Trump Term
Matt Taibbi Slams Media for Role in Russiagate Narrative
Pilots Call for Mental Health Support Without Stigma
All Five Trapped Miners Found Dead After El Teniente Mine Collapse
Ong Beng Seng Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case Linked to Former Singapore Transport Minister
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
Italy Fines Shein One Million Euros for Misleading Sustainability Claims
×