Pot And Human Trafficking in California

[steve_bank]

Black Market Cannabis Raids Uncover Victims of Human Trafficking in California

Law enforcement officials have noted an uptick in black market operators using human trafficking victims to grow and trim the cannabis sold in legal retail stores.

hightimes.com

Authorities and advocates say that helping these victims isn’t always a simple task, as many don’t admit to being trafficked or may be unwilling to work with law enforcement to bring down the smugglers and dealers who put them in their positions.


Back in May, nine suspected victims were arrested in an early morning raid in California’s Mojave Desert. All of the workers on the secluded farm were Chinese nationals who traveled from New York, attempting to flee as law enforcement executed a search warrant.


NBC News reviewed the job listings, some of which didn’t mention specific salaries or noting that salary could be negotiated in person. One woman told the outlet via translator that she found the job on a Chinese website. Another worker named Jin said, “I have no money. What hope do I have?”

All of the workers also said they previously worked in the restaurant industry before heading West, and several mentioned their hopes to return to relatives on the East Coast. None of the workers had been paid for their labor and lived in cramped, uncomfortable trailers near the illegal grow operation.

One worker named Fang said she left her 8-year-old son behind in New York and described her living conditions, a trailer where she slept, as “very dirty, it’s very messy.” She also said that her employers had been dishonest about what the work would actually entail.

 

[Gun Nut]

Retailers must be willing to sell unlicensed goods, otherwise there would be no "black market" for pot.
It's like me showing up to my local liquor store and convincing them to sell my bathtub whiskey with a bubble jet printed label on a recycled glass bottle.... The retailer is creating the problem.

 

[steve_bank]

The initial idea was decriminlize and get rid of the black market. The states smelling money legalized possession but created a state monopoly. In Wa untill a 90s referndum the only place you could buy hard liquor was in a stet run store.

The idea is when you buy black market drugs comsider where your money is going.

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course when the only market is the black market...

 

[ZiprHead]

Of course when the only market is the black market...

Were these really black market operations? They were selling to legal retail stores.

And this:

The workers were ultimately charged with misdemeanors and later released. They had tended to 25 greenhouses, where about 1,000 pound of processed cannabis was recovered, according to law enforcement. Officials also said that the facility likely generated $8 million in quarterly revenue. While none of the workers claimed they had been trafficked, law enforcement officials suspected otherwise.

 

[bilby]

I would be shocked if this were not "business as usual" for ALL agriculture in California.

Does anyone seriously believe that Californian citizens, or any US citizens, are happily working the fields and greenhouses of CA, at rates of pay that render the product profitable to the farmers and retailers at the current retail price?

The only thing that's new here is that the Christian Right doesn't have a bee in its collective bonnet about Almonds, or Grapes, or Oranges, or Tomatoes, etc., etc.

The story is pure spin. "Non-citizens working without work permits in Californian agricultural businesses" is "Dog bites man". But when the business in question is growing Cannabis, rather than Cantaloupes, suddenly the same permitless workers are 'victims of human trafficking'.

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course when the only market is the black market...

Were these really black market operations? They were selling to legal retail stores.

And this:

The workers were ultimately charged with misdemeanors and later released. They had tended to 25 greenhouses, where about 1,000 pound of processed cannabis was recovered, according to law enforcement. Officials also said that the facility likely generated $8 million in quarterly revenue. While none of the workers claimed they had been trafficked, law enforcement officials suspected otherwise.

They were, it's just that most of these groups are servicing black markets out of state even as they service grey markets in-state. The activities that keep (kept?) the farms safe from state actions are exactly activities that keep (kept?) the farms safe from federal actions.

It's a matter of production scale and book keeping. Pay 30 documented persons to make weed and it's obvious from the fact that you have 30 people you are churning more weed out than the place with 15 documented persons.

If you hire 15 documented and 15 undocumented, you can increase production without increasing visibility of that.

Everyone (or nearly) making weed in Cali has a large diversionary stream to all the places east of them that haven't legalized or at least haven't legalized to reasonable prices, and to support that stream, they have to manage a mixture of black market and grey market processes.