When Congressman Jay Obernolte was the guest on the Z107.7 Up Close Show last Friday (July 9), he wasted no time tackling one of the biggest problems plaguing our desert communities; illegal marijuana cultivation. Cassidy Taylor has the recap…
Obernolte said it is time to get the DEA involved in the situation. Why?
“First of all, when you’re doing it illegally, that means you’re not afraid to break other laws. So, they’re stealing water lots of times that they either tap into a water main or they drill their own well, which means there’s less water for everyone else. Many times, they’re stealing power. They tap into a power line or a meter and that raises the cost for everyone else since those costs are shared. They use banned pesticides that aren’t legal anywhere here in the United States and not only does that cause problems for the people that come in contact with those plants, but also those pesticides end up in our groundwater.” – Congressman Jay Obernolte
Cultivation is only half the problem, according to Obernolte.
“This is a, a situation of the state’s own making, because when they legalize the cultivation of marijuana, they also decriminalize possession of marijuana, and illegal cultivation of marijuana to the point where it’s only a misdemeanor. And in most cases, these people only pay a civil fine, it’s about $500. And they just count that up as the cost of doing business.” – Congressman Jay Obernolte
The classification of cultivation as a misdemeanor also poses problems in prosecuting those behind it.
“For example, they can’t get wiretap authorization for prosecution of those crimes, they have to try and link it to a larger crime, such as money laundering, to be able to do that. So, what we need to do is we need to create a new felony crime for large scale cultivation of marijuana without a license.” – Congressman Jay Obernolte
