California Attorney General Rob Bonta says he will try a new, broader approach to disrupting illegal pot farms that undercut the legal economy and sow widespread environmental damage.
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 task force that was created by law in 2020, all with the goal of filing civil and criminal cases against those behind illegal grows.
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. 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.
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.
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