How illegal cannabis smoked California
California voters legalized cannabis last decade. So why is the illegal market more successful than ever?
Headlines From The Times · Mark Nieto, Shannon Lin, Heba Elorbany, Shani O. Hilton, Gustavo Arellano, Mike Heflin, Kinsee Morlan, Jazmín Aguilera, Kasia Broussalian, Ashlea Brown, Madalyn Amato, David Toledo, Denise Guerra, Mario Diaz
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Show Notes
California voters legalized cannabis in 2016, and one of the issues that was supposed to be solved was the violence and environmental wreckage associated with the drug’s illegal trade. But that hasn’t happened.
Inside California’s famed “Emerald Triangle,” a region north of San Francisco known for its weed, there’s an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 illegal cannabis farms alone. The under-the-radar cultivation is messing with once-peaceful communities. Today, we get into this issue. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times investigative reporter Paige St. John
More reading:
Legal Weed, Broken Promises: A Times series on the fallout of legal pot in California
Nobody knows how widespread illegal cannabis grows are in California. So we mapped them