California has been accused of ‘giving up’ on illegal weed after official data revealed a dramatic decline in the number of raids being carried out on black market operations.
Search warrants served on illicit retailers and cultivators have fallen by 80 per cent in less than a year, according to figures released by the state’s Department of Cannabis Control (DCC).
It comes despite Governor Gavin Newsom’s claims that he is taking ‘aggressive action’ to shut down unlicensed retailers linked to organized crime and human trafficking.
Newsom launched the United Cannabis Enforcement Taskforce (UCETF) in 2022 in a bid to tackle a black market that had spiraled out of control in the wake of legalization.
It has since pumped out quarterly statistics trumpeting its achievements alongside the governor’s boasts of a crackdown.
Newsom launched the Unified Cannabis Enforcement Taskforce in 2022 in a bid to tackle a black market that had spiraled out of control in the wake of legalization
San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Detective Chris Bassett inspects an illegal cannabis farm in Newberry Springs during a raid, in the western Mojave Desert of Southern California in March
Data shows the number of raids carried out by the taskforce has dropped 80% since last year
But industry experts have accused officials of ‘massaging’ the figures, while sheriffs have told DailyMail.com that the taskforce has done little to stem the tide.
Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall said police were still pitifully under-resourced, adding: ‘It’s like giving someone a garden hose to put out a forest fire.’
Fudging the figures?
It was never meant to be this way.
Legislators had hoped that the mere creation of a commercial market for cannabis in 2021 would drive out the black market, while generating billions of dollars a year in taxed sales.
But they failed to account for the reality that decriminalizing a vast and highly profitable industry would open the floodgates to organized criminals and opportunists, for whom the reduced risks of prosecution incentivized their growth.
Those who remained outside of the law have also been able to undercut legitimate businesses, which have been hammered with high taxes.
Unlicensed grows are now believed to outnumber legitimate farms by tenfold, while evidence suggests two thirds of every cannabis purchase is made illegally.
The creation of the taskforce was a tacit admission that politicians had been grossly naïve to believe that legalization would be the magic wand to rid the state of illegal weed.
It has been charged with coordinating enforcement efforts at state, local and federal level.
Since inception, the taskforce has seized around $400million in unlicensed cannabis through 256 search warrants. It has also eradicated 409,656 plants and seized 139 firearms.
But the number of search warrants it has served fell from 92 in the second quarter of last year to just 18 in the first quarter of 2024.
It has sparked Griffen Thorne, an attorney who represents legal cannabis businesses, to question whether the state had ‘given up’ on illegal weed.
‘Every quarter they publish this data and make congratulatory statements about how good of a job they’re doing,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘They’re not doing a good job. It’s a complete mess.’
The unified taskforce was created to coordinate efforts to shut down illegal cannabis retailers and cultivators. Pictured: San Bernardino police raid an illegal cannabis farm in March
Newsom has repeatedly heralded their achievements to show he is dealing with the crisis
But critics say their efforts are a ‘drop in the bucket’ compared to the scale of the problem
The crisis has even been linked to a spate of killings as cartels spread fear among residents
The taskforce has said it is carrying out fewer raids because it is ‘focusing on priority targets’ – large operations that have a ‘significant impact’ on the supply chain.
But Thorne maintains that their actions are merely ‘a drop in the bucket’.
In Mendocino County alone, Sheriff Kendall estimates there are between 4,000 to 6,000 illegal grows.
‘Shutting down 18 of these in the state of California is not doing much, regardless of how big they are,’ Thorne said.
Other metrics are admittedly more encouraging.
The taskforce seized 31,866 pounds of cannabis in the first three months of this year, compared to 13,394 in the final quarter of last year.
The retail value of confiscated weed increased from $22million to $54million, backing up the state’s claim that it is focusing on bigger operations.
But these figures are still down from the 66,315 pounds of cannabis seized in the second quarter of 2023, which came to $109million.
Besides, Thorne is skeptical of how street value is calculated, and whether weight is measured when the product is refined into sellable form.
Hirsh Jain, founder of cannabis consultancy Ananda Strategy, accused the state of trying to ‘massage the data’.
‘It leads one to believe that Governor Newsom is doing something about the problem,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘Whereas an examination of the data indicates this is more optical than substantive.’
Taking down the cartels
Those running the taskforce say the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
Kevin McInerney of the DCC, one of the lead agencies on the taskforce, told DailyMail.com that raids were ‘not the end goal’.
‘It is an important factor in the way we gauge our success,’ he said. ‘But removing a product that can be grown or manufactured relatively easily doesn’t solve the problem.’
Increasingly, this is organized crime.
California has been hit by a spate of brutal slayings linked to the illegal cannabis market.
Earlier this year, six bloodied bodies were found scattered across a desolate stretch of the Mojave desert. Authorities said it was the result of a cannabis deal gone wrong.
Surrounding communities now live in fear of armed gangs who patrol the perimeters of illegal grows.
McInerney said these are the people the taskforce is gunning for, but such ‘complex’ investigations take time. He is less interested in quick rips on smaller operations.
‘We don’t want to just be playing the whack-a-mole game,’ he said. ‘We want to remove the people that are the players behind the scenes, the ones making hundreds of millions of dollars.’
‘Whether we get a seizure with 100 pounds or 50,000 plants makes a little difference as long as the search warrants themselves net us evidence towards the end goal, which is prosecution.’
A taskforce without teeth?
But others believe law enforcement is still ill-equipped to deal with the sheer scale of the crisis.
Mendocino County lies in the heart of California’s Emerald Triangle, renowned for its plentiful weed production.
Yet Sheriff Kendall said his cannabis enforcement team consists of a single sergeant and a part-time deputy.
His team has had little help from the taskforce, who have focused their work on indoor retailers, commonly in urban areas.
Jaydeep Bhatia, chief policy coordinator for the UCETF, said building out local partners was ‘a work in progress’, but admitted the taskforce was ‘limited in resources’.
McInerney said his division had less than one detective per county.
‘We do the best with what we have,’ he added. ‘If you give us more resources, we can be more effective.’
Police have not been helped by the weakened punishments for illegal operators that came as part of the legalization package.
The UCETF seized 31,866 pounds of cannabis in Q1 2024, compared to 13,394 in Q4 2023. But these figures are still down from the 66,315 pounds of cannabis seized in Q2 2023
The retail value of weed confiscated by the taskforce increased from $22million to $54million in the last quarter, but is still down from a high of almost $110million in Q2 of 2023
Criminal penalties for unlicensed cultivation were reduced from a felony punishable with jail time to a $500 misdemeanor regardless of the size of the crop.
To bring a felony case that might shut down an operation, prosecutors must find other charges.
But this requires investigators, who are few and far between.
Usually, raids simply bag up a load of weed and cuff some low-wage workers, while the organized gangs behind the grows remain untouched by the law.
‘There’s no teeth to deal with it,’ Kendall said. ‘When we show up and there’s 100,000 plants and the guy gets a traffic ticket and he’s never going to serve a minute in jail, where is the incentive to go legal?
‘We just can’t make any headway on this.’
Kendall said the situation has created a ‘dangerous’ environment for his officers and the residents they are supposed to protect.
But he vows that he has not ‘given up’ on the task at hand – and merely asks that he and others be given the tools they need to do the job.
