Rush of pot grows splits rural California
Influx of marijuana cultivation has caused a backlash among residents
COPPEROPOLIS >> The four young men had just started their marijuana harvest in rural Northern California when a dozen sheriff’s deputies swooped in with guns drawn, arrested them and spent the day chopping down 150 bushy plants with machetes.
“I could do this every day if I had the personnel,” Calaveras County Sheriff Rick DiBasilio said during the operation near the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Copperopolis, about two hours east of San Francisco.
Authorities this year have cut down close to 30,000 plants grown without permits in a county that is reconsidering its embrace of marijuana cultivation ahead of statewide legalization.
“There are just so many of them,” the sheriff said of the illegal farms. “It’s neverending.”
Marijuana has deeply divided financially strapped Calaveras County, among many where growers are increasingly open about their operations and are
starting to encroach on neighborhoods.
DiBasilio estimates the county — population 44,000 and about the size of Rhode Island — has more than 1,000 illegal farms in addition to the hundreds with permits or in the process of obtaining them. The influx has caused a backlash among residents and led to the ouster of some leaders who approved marijuana cultivation.
Pot farmers operating legally say they are helping the local economy and have threatened to sue over attempts to stop them.
California is set to issue licenses in January to grow, transport and sell weed for recreational purposes, nearly 20 years after the state first authorized the drug’s consumption with a doctor’s recommendation.
Farmers can legally grow marijuana for recreational consumption next year but are required to get a local permit before applying for a state license, which has sparked a boom in potfriendly counties.
Calaveras County legalized medical marijuana cultivation last year, seeking to tax the hundreds of farms that popped up after a 2015 wildfire destroyed more than 500 homes.
County officials expected to receive about 250 applications by the 2016 deadline. They got 770. About 200 applications have been approved, a similar number rejected, and the others are still being processed.
The sheriff gets some of the nearly $10 million in fees and taxes paid by legal farmers to crack down on illegal grows, many of which the department has mapped from the air.
Law enforcement officials say they have raided farms where they found pesticides that are banned in the U.S.
“It has changed our way of life,” said Bill McManus, head of an organization seeking to ban marijuana in Calaveras County. “The environmental impacts are atrocious.”
The California Growers Association estimates about 3,500 farmers in Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties have applied for local permits and will be in a position to receive state licenses. An additional 29,000 farmers there haven’t bothered with the paperwork, according to the group.
In Calaveras County, voters in January replaced four of the five supervisors who voted to legalize marijuana. The new majority has vowed to repeal legalization and institute a strict ban. But a formal vote has been delayed several times amid threats of lawsuits from farmers.
“So much of this is a cultural war,” grower Beth Witke said. “I’m tired of being demoralized by the ban supporters.”