AmeriCann, a Colorado company, has announced much bigger plans to build the nation’s largest marijuana grow facility—in Massachusetts—in 2017. Obviously, the prospects of enjoying an influx of cannabis cash similar to California’s is appealing to other states and legalization proved popular in the November elections. The national marijuana market is projected to generate $50 billion a year by 2026....
The weed business is still very iffy—apart from financing problems, you can’t transport cannabis across states because of its status as a Schedule 1 drug, and there are numerous obstacles to entry, such as obtaining one of the limited number of licenses available in any given state. “It’s not for the faint of heart,” says Tim Keogh, president and CEO of AmeriCann.
https://qz.com/872938/the-biggest-marijuana-grow-facility-in-the-us-isnt-where-you-think-it-would-be/...................................................................................................................................................................
Mai Vue, the founder of Conscious Cannabis Resources, a nonprofit organization that helps Hmong farmers navigate the growing thicket of regulations applied to marijuana growing, estimates that more than 1,500 Hmong live in Trinity County, which has a population of about 13,000.
“When they first came here eight years ago, they were scared to even go to the grocery store,” Ms. Vue said. “I would go, because my husband was white. It was just fear, I think, on both sides. It was: ‘This is a small town. Maybe they don’t accept us.’”
In neighboring Siskiyou County, Hmong who are cultivating marijuana sued the sheriff and other officials last year for what they said was voter intimidation.
But in Trinity, Hmong are gaining acceptance. Last year, a Hmong team won a prize in a prestigious local barbecue competition. At the school holiday pageant, the students put on a Hmong fashion show.
In November, Bobbi Chadwick, a farmer, was elected to a seat on the Board of Supervisors under the slogan Unite Trinity, which was understood as a sign of uniting the Hmong and the white population. Ms. Chadwick has befriended her Hmong neighbors, organized a banquet and compared slaughtering techniques.
“Six men came to the ranch, and we harvested two hogs and a goat,” Ms. Chadwick said.
From the jungles and refugee camps of Southeast Asia, the Hmong came to America starting in 1975, during the Communist takeover of Laos and the fall of Saigon. They arrived impoverished, disoriented by the industrialized society they met and, for the most part, undereducated. They scattered around the country in climates that were foreign to tropical hill dwellers, enduring subzero winters in Minnesota and Wisconsin and the baking heat of California’s Central Valley summers.
Mark E. Pfeifer, a scholar of Southeast Asia and the editor of the Hmong Studies Journal, describes the Hmong as a late-blooming immigrant success story, shedding reliance on government assistance and finding niches in the American economy, like Asian restaurants in Michigan and the flower business in Washington State.
In 2015, the Census Bureau estimated that 285,000 Hmong were in the United States. ...Small-scale growers across the state are increasingly up against much larger industrial farms. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/hmong-marijuana-california.html
.........................................................................................................
4-15-17
SALINAS, Calif. — This vast and fertile valley is often called the salad bowl of the nation for the countless heads of lettuce growing across its floor. Now California’s marijuana industry is laying claim to a new slogan for the valley: America’s cannabis bucket.
After years of marijuana being cultivated in small plots out of sight from the authorities, California cannabis is going industrial.
Over the past year, dilapidated greenhouses in the Salinas Valley, which were built for cut flower businesses, have been bought up by dozens of marijuana entrepreneurs, who are growing pot among the fields of spinach, strawberries and wine grapes.
“This is cannabis meets Big Ag,” said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of one the nation’s largest marijuana dispensaries, who last year founded Harborside Farms to supply the business. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/us/california-marijuana-industry-agriculture.html?_r=0&mtrref=scoop.nyt.net
.........................................................................................................
4-21-17 According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Sinaloa Mexican Drug Cartel is known to be the dominant drug cartel in both California and Colorado.
Of the 17 defendants, 11 are from Mexico, four from El Salvador, and two are from California. Seven of the defendants are considered fugitives.
The defendants are alleged to have brought large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States through California using secret compartments in vehicles. The drugs were kept in stash houses in Aurora, Colorado, before being distributed at a local grocery store.
A money transfer station at the grocery store was used to send some of the proceeds back to Mexico. The rest of the funds were smuggled back in secret vehicle compartments.
“We are committed to dismantling and removing the threat posed by these criminal organizations flooding American communities with dangerous narcotics,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “This organization is alleged to have moved large amounts of meth and cocaine from Mexico to Colorado, with devastating impact on communities in their wake. http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/04/21/17-alleged-mexican-cartel-operatives-charged-colorado/
........................................................................................................................................
the Federal Security Directorate, known by its initials in Spanish, DFS, is an internal intelligence force under the Ministry of the Interior. Along with his checkbook, Caro Quintero was reported to be carrying DFS identification when he fled Guadalajara. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-23/news/mn-10162_1_drug-trafficker/3
..................................................................................................................................
7-25-16 Caro Quintero, now in his mid-60s, has been dubbed the "narco of narcos" and the godfather of Mexicodrug trafficking. After establishing himself as one of the country's most powerful drug lords in the 1980s, he was imprisoned in 1989 for drug trafficking, murder, and perhaps most importantly, for the abduction, torture and killing of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, an agent for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Now, authorities suspect that the legendary crime boss could be attempting a comeback, after reports hinted at his involvement in a pair of recent confrontations involving the infamous Sinaloa Cartel and its jailed leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán -- a one-time underworld associate of Caro Quintero.
Caro Quintero started his career in the drug business in the 1970s running a mega-marijuana farm in northern Mexico to supply the US market. He later progressed to the more lucrative business of trafficking Pablo Escobar's Colombian cocaine into the United States. http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/is-the-godfather-of-mexico-drug-trade-back-in-business
......................................................................................
(Most likely quite simplified, the following could be considered a broad outline or perhaps 40-80% true. -r) 10-14-14
.........................................................................................................................................
