The Daily Caller released a documentary Tuesday depicting the effects of California’s marijuana legalization on local communities.
“Narcofornia” documents two counties’ fights against drug cartels taking over their respective communities in Northern California. In Siskiyou County, the fight has pitted Californians against Asian refugees. Meanwhile, Lassen County residents scuffle with each other over whether they should embrace legal marijuana to weed out the illegal grows. Both counties’ conflicts highlight California’s legislative and legal failures and their abandonment of rural America.
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“You have to understand our frustration that we have been going through this for years,” a resident remarked at a town hall. “One of our citizens got attacked on her property walking her dog by one of the pot grower’s dogs.”
These incidents appear to be more common now than in years prior.
John Nores, the former game warden for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, estimates that the state has 10,000 cartel members within its borders.
“As the enforcement started to dwindle, they rapidly increased,” a local gun-store owner said. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Senator Introduces Bill Cracking Down On Drug Cartel Scouts Caught At The Border)
ANNAPOLIS, CA -SEPTEMBER 4: Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (C.A.M.P.) Special Agent Rick Gautier inspects a trailer full of pot plants that were seized during a marijuana garden raid September 4, 2002 in a remote area of Annapolis, California. C.A.M.P. agents eradicated over 7,000 plants in three gardens on the one-day raid. C.A.M.P. agents seized over 300,000 plants last year during their summer-long raids. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The cartels are “organized crime groups, highly structured, well funded, very aggressive, well armed, in our forest, all over California,” Nores told the Caller.
“I want some sort of acknowledgment that it’s a problem; I have yet to even hear that,” a local deputy told the Caller. (RELATED: Rep. Gaetz Asks Fellow Republicans To Flip On Marijuana Legalization)
California voted to legalize recreational marijuana in Nov. 2016. Many argued that the market would become safer if state officials could regulate the previously underground cartels while creating economic revenue. Northern California authorities are battling illegal grow plantations, violence, and ecological damage caused by cartel operations.