Joe Rogan | Weed Prohibition Fuels Drug Cartel Activity Inside the US w/John Nores

Has there been discussion, like has anybody brought this up, like Dan Crenshaw was not aware of this when I discussed it with him when I was talking about federally legalizing marijuana. Right. It's not just about saying it's okay for kids. Right. But it's about mitigating these problems that you have with cartels. Sure. Because when there is an illegal opportunity to sell something that there's a demand for, then the criminals are going to sell it. Exactly. And that's what you have now. Exactly. And has there been discussion, like to someone to bring this up, like this is one of the primary problems with having marijuana federally illegal, with California having it state legal, that there is this massive confusion and this, you know, diminishing of penalties in California. Yeah. With growing illegally. There totally is. And you know, you've got the opposite ends of the spectrum and here's what we're learning with regulation. I've always said this, I said, look, if we're going to regulate, and we need to regulate to stop this black market, let's do it smart. You know, let's for one, everything we really tried to push here in California was regulate legitimate cannabis the correct way, keep people safe. Test it. Test it. Make sure those pesticides, cartel pesticides are on the line. Absolutely, man. And as long as people aren't hurting themselves or other people, they're not destroying waterways, we're not getting in gunfights over it. Great. You know, no problem. But for like the, you know, the outdoor trespassing with these cartels, let's take that funding and put more effort into stopping that. You know, let's not water it down to misdemeanors and infractions and do things like that. And, you know, it's, and even we can even take cannabis out of the equation, Joe, from the standpoint of, I remember a few years ago, I was quoted by the Associated Press of saying, if cherry tomatoes were so desired on the black market and were illegal, and people were paying $4,000 a pound for cherry tomatoes, we'd be having gunfights over cherry tomatoes and having ban poisons on cherry tomatoes that our kids would be eating in their salads, you know, because of the black market. So you can take, you know, cannabis even out of the equation and look at the environmental impacts and look at the public safety. But we have to do something to regulate this thing uniformly over the, across the board. And we have to break the black market. But what I've seen, and I go into the last chapter of my new book, Hidden Work, extensively on this is what are the challenges moving forward after seeing regulation in play for two years, boots on the ground, watching it, and having a great relationship with legitimate cannabis growers. And I'll tell you a few stories that really opened my eyes and got us unified, right? Because the whole thing is we need to be unified on this concept. Not polarized left or right, anti-cannabis, pro-cannabis. Let's get unified on environmental safety, public safety, all of it. But because of how we've regulated and the licensing fees and the protocol and everything else, we've had all of these, you know, black market growers in the two 15 days that wanted to get legal and saw everything coming and the cost to do it and being on Big Brother's radar or law enforcement's radar, and they backed out. Like in Humboldt County, we had like, I want to stay in the better part of 10 to 50,000 growers ready to regulate and we barely got a thousand, you know, and they went, you know, I can't afford to go through this permitting process. I can't afford the delays. So I'm just going to go back on the black market. I'm not going to be on the radar. And that has to stop if we're going to regulate, right? The thing that was really interesting, and I never saw this coming, but when we were about to roll out Prop 64 and, you know, it had been voted for recreational and the medical laws were tightening up, I was the first law enforcement guy being from a marijuana enforcement team to go into these California Grower Association hosted grower meetings. And my first one was in Santa Cruz, right over the hill from my place, right? And I mean, I'm in the, you know, I'm in the BDU's, the camo bottoms, the polo. I'm going into my, you know, my training attire for Met and the look on 500 growers faces when I walked into that meeting, just like, what's he doing here? Conflict of interest. He's working us. He's a guy watching our license plates. And I'm just like, guys, everybody breathe. I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to show you a PowerPoint. It's going to be graphic. I'm not here to work anybody. You know, I'm here to unify. Just hear what I have to say. No judgment. And so I was all these guys aware of how big the situation was before you show them. I would have thought so because they're in the industry, right? They know weed better than just about anybody. I would hide all the time. They're not seeing the cartel. They're just like, they're not paying attention. They're just growing pot. Yeah, that's all I didn't see that guy. Was that kind of trail camera? What's he got a backpack, like 300 pounds of pipe? Yeah. But anyway, explain that. I mean, these guys literally would back in hundreds and hundreds of yards of pipe and of tubing for hoses on their back. Oh, they're tough. Yeah, I've got photos in the new book on trail camera with felt on their feet, covering their tracks with these sea bags, 100 plus pounds, and a spool of pipe going up, man. People don't know how hard that is to do. I mean, these guys just took a legit job. They'd be like the best employees you'd ever have. Well, they would. They would, man. They're tough. And I mean, to look at the environment they live in for six months, man. Yeah, they're all outdoors. But I was at this meeting and I gave the presentation. I talked about it. And it was crazy to see a look of shock on these these grower group's faces. I mean, some women were in tears. Some of the guys were just like pissed off and pumping their fists. And they're like, that's bullshit. We are not about that. We're not about doing anything bad with our water. We like our wildlife. We just want to grow cannabis. We want to be regulated. And it was such a turnaround from the traditional relationship between law enforcement and the cannabis world. And to be the one guy there with all of the growing community there and then go from complete horror that I was there as an adversary or a judgment or anything of that, or to do anything negative from an enforcement standpoint, to suddenly having real talks of what was going out. And I could kind of see the authenticity, the genuineness on some of their faces, the way they reacted to my slides, to the videos. And so when I left that first meeting, I remember I just got flooded in my patrol truck and I had Apollo with me, my little lab. And she's an icebreaker. I thought, well, it could be an interesting meeting. I should have the dog for pets, you know. And she jumped in and all these growers were coming to my truck and I'm packing up my stuff and I'm like, wow, this is weird. And it was all these farmer supervisors from all over the state, you know, Mendocino County up in the Emerald Triangle, Santa Cruz. And they're just giving me their cards and go, hey, Lieutenant, I have workers. I have resources. We will hike in and clean up a grow with you. Let us help the MET team. Let us help the cannabis program, whatever we can do. No charge. And that was genuine, man. I was really, really taken aback by that in a positive way. And I realized if we get the legitimate farmers on our side and they're aware of this, they will help market that message. Also, they have money. And they have money. Yeah. The legitimate farmers are making a lot of money. That would be a great way for, you know, I mean, tax wise. I mean, there's extremely high taxes on cannabis as it is. Right. But if we could allocate that taxes. Absolutely. To you guys. Yeah. That would be incredible. Yeah. Where's the money going? Let's have a certain percentage of it designated for wardens. That's starting to happen too, because what's now that we've had a couple of years and we're seeing some of the regulatory funding on the taxes trickle back. I'm in contact with my team all the time. I still get to see him periodically and train and do things like that and really give them a shout out for all the amazing, you know, risks they're taking and the work they're doing and promote their message of what they're out there doing. But the money's starting to come back to us now. So we're starting to get equipment. We're starting to get more bodies. We're starting to get like overtime funding. So the ridiculous long hours, our small team works, they're compensated for that. Just just happened literally, you know, within a month or two of being on the show with you. So we're seeing some positives from that. Those rates raised. We're trying. Yeah, we're trying. Alert the press. 40% is disgusting. This, uh, this coffee is awesome. Damn good. Well, gosh, they're tambled, man. I'm not even a coffee drinker and I'm loving this stuff. It's great stuff. It makes your mouth smack though. It gives you a little. Yeah. You're like clear your throat a lot. It's a coconut oil and turmeric and all that jazz. Healthy. Colorado was the first state to legalize it in Washington state. Do they have similar problems? They still have a black market, you know, and the thing right now, because we're not regulating federally. And so every state, anything that's grown stays in that state per law, right? But every, all the demand is back East in these non-regulated states where they don't grow it. So Colorado has a, you know, an interstate black market that's done by the quasi legitimate growers as well as the cartel elements. So there's still that black market thriving within, you know, the black market cannabis industry that isn't cartel public lands. We've got different mixes and we've got different. Okay. So it's a different kind of a problem in Colorado. So they don't have as many cartel grows. Not as many. They have some. They have some. I've, I've, I've talked to those guys and worked with them a little bit and they do have some. But again, they're kind of like where I'm at Montana now, tight little growing window, you know, early winters, late thaws. So they don't have a very big growing season outdoors. The conditions aren't prime like they are here in Cali. This is a, this is a giant issue that is largely undiscussed. And it's one of the reasons why I was so fascinated by that podcast is that, and this is one more, one more piece of the puzzle when you're talking about border control, right? That somehow or another we've gotten into this, this state in our country, this, this place in our country where some people want to control the border and some people don't want any borders. Right. And you have to understand that this is the number one problem with the border. The number one problem with the border is cartel violence, cartel violence, cartel crime. That's the number one problem. The giant percentage of these people that are coming over and doing illegal activity are doing it because it's profitable. Right. The reason why it's profitable is because it's illegal. And so they can do these things and sell marijuana. Right. All over this country illegally because it's illegal. And if it was legal, we could regulate it, we could tax it. The money could go into schools and pay for guys like you and go to fixing this problem. And instead we're playing this little stupid game where some states are legal and some states aren't and let's, let's, and it's federally, it's still a schedule one crime when there's millions of legitimate law abiding, tax paying citizens that enjoy it. And it's crazy. It is. And to that point, you look at the discrepancy and just the inconsistency on cannabis regulation, some states, some not, federally not. But when you get to the border issue, you brought up that good point of it's not just that cartel element for this poison cannabis stuff or this toxically tainted cannabis is a better way to phrase it. It's the smuggling, the human trafficking. It's all those other crimes that methamphetamine production. So I'm not, I get asked a lot. Like after, you had a great conversation with Mike Baker on this was, are open borders going to work? And no, we've got to have some regulation. It's just not going to work. Well, the world's not even. So that's why open borders aren't going to work. If the world was even and there was, you know, there's like extreme crime right below us. And, you know, I had Ed Calderon on who works for Mexico. We just started dialoguing last week. I like that guy a lot. Good guy. Yeah. Boy, does he scare the shit out of you though, when he tells you the stories about Mexico, about how bad it is down there. And there's just an insane amount of violence that's going on down there and insane amount of crime. And so much of it is connected to the illegal drug trade. And look, you're not going to kill it all if you make marijuana legal, but you would kill a percentage. At least it would make it a little bit better and it would stop that. Yeah. And one of the things we get from getting that regulation, if we can stop that black market for, you know, cartel weed, we're going to save a lot of wildlife. Yes. We're going to preserve a lot of waterways, right? Because all those other crimes are very heinous and very destructive. And I hate to see the human trafficking and all the meth problems and anything that relates to violence or a deterioration of a soul. But, you know, I love the wild man, the woods are my church. Yours too. I mean, what you do for conservation, the elk hunting that you're doing and all those different things. I mean, it's just, it's magical out there. And it's just, most people just don't even know. I don't think. No, but I mean. You just don't get a chance to experience what it's like to actually be in the real woods. Yeah. Be in the real woods, which are getting shrinker, smaller and smaller and smaller, even here in Cali that has so much beauty. But I look at it this way. I said, look, if we lose all of our open space to a problem like this and it compounds the problem and we lose our wildlife in good water, you may not be into the outdoors right now. You might be a preservationist. You might be, you know, on your freaking digital device all the time and looking at wildlife through a screen. But if you ever do go out and you get that piece in tranquility and you get centered like we do run a trail, hike a, you know, LA County mountain trail, open space, don't even get that far in the woods. It's just soothing. Yeah. You know, brings us back to our center. And, you know, if the new generations that aren't getting that from the cities can get that or they get their kids doing it or their grandkids or hear about it, but it's not there to go to. That to me, man, we're just, we're just not paying it forward enough. So this is, this is something I got to stay on and I really appreciate you and what you stand for because of the message. I think just so many people don't know. Yeah. I just think that's a big part of it. They don't know. What's interesting to me too, is that the allocation of resources, it's so when you have something that's illegal, you're not getting any of that money. No. And if it was legal, there's an enormous amount of money that could go to schools and fix the roads and we can allocate it to a bunch of different big time, really positive ways to spend it. And we're not doing that. And it's, it's the reason why is because it's illegal. And this, this crime problem is very similar to what they face during prohibition with alcohol and you, the rise of organized crime. I mean, that's where they were getting their money from because there was such a demand. It's really a disgusting, dumb way to approach a problem that is many people's ideas of social problem. That money could go to so many different positive things. Yeah. And when we're perpetuating it through that reason, many others were basically, you know, we're basically embedding the problem in our country. And Ed said this called our own. We were dialoguing earlier this week and he said, you know, he's kind of looked at things from the border and south and the issues coming in from the border from the cartel front. He said, you know, now I'm getting wind of your book and I'm starting to analyze what you guys are fighting on the ground inside the borders in California and the rest of the country. He goes, it's embedded now. I mean, it's not like it's just coming across. I mean, the enterprise is embedded here in the nation because they have the pipeline, they have the distribution, they have a market and they don't have to deal with the border issue. And so that's really cool because of exactly where we're at and what people aren't aware of. And in California that it's just a misdemeanor, which is even more insane. Yeah, that's got to change. That's got to change. You know what I mean? It should be something horrendous. If you're, if you actually have a background in crime, especially particularly violent crime, when you get caught doing something like that, I mean, it should be severe, severe penalty. Absolutely be severe. Now the saving grace of that is when we get the environmental crimes that we bring from the fish and wildlife standpoint to those charges for these guys, we get it back to felony status because we had an interesting thing happen. As soon as all that regulation started two years ago and the water, you know, those trespass grow crimes were watered down to what we're talking about. We're talking about district attorneys all throughout the state said, oh man, we're not going to be able to prosecute these crimes. I mean, we're not going to have, you know, we're not going to have a jury that's sympathetic to these issues. It's not worth it. Some sheriff's departments were saying, hey, we know how violent these guys are. We know your team's been in like six gunfights, man. Your partner was almost killed in 05 in the first one. You guys take these guys head on, you know, you want to protect your wildlife, whatever, but they're not stopping and it's a misdemeanor and we can't convict them. So we're not going to play. So the backlash of those crimes being watered down, Joe, was teams stop working at it except us and like the feds, you know, and not only that, DAs couldn't prosecute. So I remember speaking for the California district attorney association on this and saying, guys, there's a solution. Everybody, no matter where they sit on the cannabis spectrum, everybody hates to see Bambi dead, water poisoned. Everyone has a little bit of environmental passion in them on both sides of the fence. And that's where I say here we get to the, we can unify and not worry about where we sit on the per for or against. And if you take these water code enhancements, if you take the felony and the penal code from the band, toxics like carbon fear, and if you take a stream bed alteration diversion or dead wildlife or littering close to a state waterway, you stack all those up, you get all these penalties and you can convict on that. You know, even in a sympathetic jury on say a cannabis issue. So we started to prosecute these cases and they started to come back and it's an arduous end around. It's more work than we should have to do, but we're doing it.