Law Enforcement: Environmental Terrorists

Updating the "Raid of the Decade Debacle" from our last post; we understand that through all of this folly the Three Amigos ended up not making much of an impact on the cannabis market.
Yes prices per pound have risen, great for all of those not targeted, and supply continues completely unabated....
No arrests, the only seizures were legally produced medical cannabis.
California Highway Patrol declined to particpate when they saw the target, Fish and Game stood back and watched as amateur hour unfolded. So the Amigos called out the National Guard...at God only knows what cost to the taxpayer to witness a display of idiocy run amok.
So, Los Tres Amigos, what was your point?

We're all seeing the propaganda you put out about a half million gallons of water a day being used on these farms...and find it humorous, these guys don't grow almonds Amigos.

There does not exist today, a watershed in the Island area that could possibly support that kind of pumping; nor do these farmers have the capacity to pump that much water in a day let alone a week.
The total finished weight of product from modified light deprivation greenhouses you took, would have amounted to 1200 pounds of finished product; not even what one farmer does in a harvest.
Bottom line the growers I've spoken to who use this method use ONE gallon of water per plant per day.
One sixth the water usage attributed by the "Authority", who needlessly dumped a couple hundred thousand gallons of rainwater down a hill. Water the county will now have to replace at taxpayer expense.
We have laws in California protecting the rights of children, even the children of cannabis farmers, so Amigos when your actions deprive children of water, you open your county and yourselves personally to a possible list of penalties that you legal beagles should be able to sniff out.

Another thing Amigos, if you're going to toss numbers around like you toss each others salads, at least make them verifiable.

Really, going after cannabis activists that can out spend you is, well, pretty foolish considering you don't have the resources to back your play, especially when you don't get Federal dollars for this nonsense anymore.
So stealing a privately owned tractor to destroy a legally permitted water system on another privately owned parcel, does nothing but open the Counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity to civil actions that they will surely lose,  leaving your constituents exposed like a pervy flasher on a playground...a crime you really should be after.

Amigos, doing these raids on properties that are the poster children for compliance, illustrates perfectly the Bozo the Clown school of law enforcement you clearly took your degrees from, and a course we need to steer clear of when we elect your replacements.

Using that tractor to destroy a family farmers personal water supply is environmental terrorism conducted by law enforcement. Rolling that farmers water storage tank down a hill, while tearing holes into that container, is terrorism. These acts are no different from any ideologically based campaign of destruction perpetrated by a terrorist group.

Committing terrorist acts while wearing the uniform and badge of law enforcement, reeks of a police state mentality our forefathers fought and died to keep from poisoning our shores.
Isn't it enough that these farmers are willing to jump from persecution to taxation?
Do they also have to see those tax dollars deployed against them and their families by terrorists?

The first Three Amigos film with Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Steve Martin was a comedy classic for the ages.
This latest iteration starring Sheriffs' Allman, Haney and Downey is an Ishtar like failure.
I hope someone caught it on film...

Law Enforcement: Lashing Out in Their Death Throes

When Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome recently stated, " Good people can disagree", regarding the distance between law enforcement and the cannabis legalization movement, I knew he was sugar coating reality. Pretty sure everybody in the room knew it too.

Well, the push back has begun.
Cynically and stupidly some of those "good people", the Three Amigos Sheriffs from Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties, recently got together a cowboy raiding party to specifically target legal cannabis farmers who are supporting the legalization movement. Farmers who have come out of the dark to have legally permitted water catchment systems, farmers who want to pay taxes, the same taxes that are being misused now to destroy legally permitted water systems during a drought.
100,000 gallons and counting.

Committing the very environmental crimes they claim to prevent.
While stealing private bulldozers to do those crimes.
The Three Amigos call it "asset forfeiture" and "eradication", the rest of society calls it what it is, THEFT.
Doing it all without benefit of search warrant. Illegal.
In the three counties in California that rely most heavily on cannabis cultivation to support their respective economies.
Brilliant?

Why? Because guys like Tom Allman the Sheriff of Mendocino County like illegal cannabis.
Besides all the toys they get to choose from before they hit auction, through "asset forfeiture"....
Black market weed is far more profitable than legal stuff, no taxes, higher costs, selective enforcement targeting unwanted competition. Because as you know "Mr. Burkhart, not everybody in Mendocino County is allowed to grow marijuana." That's what I was told in 2008 while sitting in his jail.

With the FBI recently nailing the Deputy Chief of Police in the City of Fresno for dealing prescription narcotics in a sting; makes me wonder if they have their eyes on law enforcement in our cannabis producing counties.
If they don't, they're not doing their jobs.

Law Enforcement: A Parallel Universe

What happens in the business world when an idea, product, or service becomes outdated, unsustainable, and ultimately meets with failure?

Answer: That failed idea, product, or service is promptly relegated to the "Book of Lessons Learned", never to be repeated under sentence of perpetual poverty.

Well today I had the opportunity to attend a round table discussion hosted by California's Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome on the topic of cannabis legal reform, with an emphasis on taxation, and land use law. 

From the outset Lt. Governor Newsome made it clear that he believes a cannabis legalization ballot initiative was all but certain for 2016, and it's passage is more probable than not. Having said that, we should prepare for the new reality before us, in the most proactively responsible way possible.
Just when the Lt. Governor said, "Good people can disagree." somebody did...in a most disagreeable way.

When asked, the President of the California Police Chiefs Association, Chief Garza of the Reedley Police Dept. stated: "It's mine and our organizations view that marijuana should not be legal"..."we have to protect my four children, and all the kids in the community..." 

Now remember we're supposed to be discussing taxation and land use after inevitable legalization, not his organizations preference for failed policy.

What happened to staying on subject?

My guess is, this guy didn't go to business school, because he never once addressed the topic at hand.

Chief Garza kept beating the dead horse argument that expensive enforcement and incarceration is somehow fiscally more responsible than collecting taxes, and reallocating resources to real drug education, not propaganda.

In my world; dude is F-I-R-E-D.

This is our fundamental problem; if we have people running law enforcement that can't recognize failed policy repeatedly slapping them in the face, how will they transition to the new reality of cannabis legalization?

It's like J. Edgar Hoover, the 'esteemed', and allegedly cross dressing, founder and long time Director of the F.B.I., who until his dying breath refused to acknowledge the reality of the Mafia. 

J. Edgar's not alone, throughout history we have examples of authority "turning a blind eye" to the reality we all know exists; but what motivates the top cop in the country to ignore the albatross shitting on our heads?

Could it be cash?

In the case of today's police chiefs, we know it's the cash.

Federal grants, and military equipment have been flowing to these forces the past 30 years at a rate we could only dream of for our schools. The War on Drugs has our prisons bursting, with the number of prison guards becoming so large, they are the best funded lobby in Sacramento, while at the same time more cannabis, heroin, meth, and just about any pharmaceutical drug you want is easier to find than at any time in the last 40 years. Just ask Chief Jerry Dyer of the Fresno P.D., his Deputy Chief was recently busted in a FBI sting supplying pharmaceutical drugs to undercover agents...and Jerry didn't have a clue.

Reality Check Chief Garza, repeated application of failed policy to a problem will only yield the same predictable result: failure.

I can only imagine the rationale going through the minds of law enforcement, but it must be something like this:

"When you have a vested interest in your own failure, and there's no penalty for that failure, it's in your own best interest to perpetuate that failure, even though it's not in the best interest of those you serve, the people who ultimately sign your checks."

Thanks for the clarification Chief Garza.