Pot Vineyards
Drug Lords Are Now Desperate
By Daniel Muniz

When drug smuggling across our border with Mexico became too difficult, the drug cartels tried growing marijuana in isolated areas of our national and state parks. After federal authorities began dismantling those operations, drug lords then bought legitimate farms, especially vineyards, to grow pot.

This bold if not audacious development represents the extremes that drug lords now have to resort to in order to get marijuana to American consumers. The “War on Drugs” has created so much consternation within the violent Mexican drug cartel because it is no longer as easy as it once was to ship enormous quantities of pot to the United States for quick profits. This country now has a much better enforcement of our border states and the result has been amazingly successful drug interdictions which have produced record seizures.

It may seem outlandish for drug lords to actually try to grow and harvest huge fields of pot in the United States but that option quickly became one of the few remaining alternatives left for them to generate their cash flow. Over the years crossing our border with large inventories of marijuana has been getting tougher so the answer is to grow it here. But even that solution has been slowly thwarted by law enforcement when aerial surveillance and other intelligence gathering means revealed what the organized crime rings were really up to.

On the surface, our national park system seemed ideal because there were plenty of mountain streams to provide water needed for irrigation. In addition, certain areas were desolate enough that hardly anyone ever wandered into them. However, the pot growers were well armed to keep any intruders away.

But now that that option has also been taken away so it was amazing that the drug lords turned to legitimate farms.

Although they preferred their anonymity in the middle of nowhere to grow marijuana they are now forced to go more public in their pot farming because they really don’t have a choice.

For example, the Yakima Valley is the fruit bowl for central Washington State and it has also become the epicenter of a booming wine industry. But it also has attracted the attention of the Mexican drug cartels that are desperately searching for new places to cultivate marijuana. Additionally, it is strategically located near Seattle and Portland so it is a short trip to service the pot heads and recreational users of that vicinity.

So flush with money, the organized crime rings are able to lay down huge sums of cash to actually purchase or lease these existing vineyards and orchards. But not only is this happening in Washington State, the drug lords are looking for farmland anywhere in the country, especially when it is near large metropolitan areas.

Incidentally, it was fairly easy to find buyers because family farms are not being passed down to the next generation as it once was because there are now fewer people willing to make a living out of agriculture. Consequently, there are a lot more property owners who are willing to sell their land.

And even for the farmers who have absolutely no intention of selling the family farm or any portion of it, the drug cartels are now offering obscene amounts of money for such properties that the reluctant owners will not turn it down. Interestingly, because drug lords don’t use checking accounts they have to pay for all of their transactions in cash. It ought to raise a red flag to why someone would be walking around with suitcases stuffed with one hundred dollar bills but the offers are so good that the sellers don’t ask any questions.

Unlike operating in the boondocks of a national forest, orchards and vineyards have a separate set of advantages. The pot growers can more openly use farm equipment instead of lugging it out to the middle of nowhere. And most importantly, they now have access to legitimate sources of water to irrigate their pot crops instead of trying to siphon it off from a creek or mountain stream they dammed up.

But their biggest disadvantage is that they are now operating out in public which means that they can be more easily discovered. As a result, it didn’t take long for authorities to figure out what was going on.

Accordingly, the government has been cracking down on these pot farms and rounding up the workers for the drug cartel.

However, the biggest development has been the growing tenacity of the War on Drugs by our country. What once seemed to be a hopeless battle is now becoming a war of attrition in which the drug lords are now beginning to run out of options of how they will get their marijuana to American consumers.

Of course the Mexican drug cartels won’t give up so easily especially since they are more than willing to gun down police chiefs, judges, and mayors in Mexico. Even so, the big developments that the United States has made means that drug trafficking is no longer as simple and straightforward as it once was.

Regrettably, when it comes to making huge profits the organized crime rings have shown a lot of ingenuity in finding innovative solutions to getting drugs over here. But as time goes on and the resolve of our nation stiffens, the drug lords will start running out of options. Buying farms on this side of the borders vividly demonstrates how desperate they are becoming which also means that they will continue to resort to even more extreme measures, perhaps urban farming where hundreds of houses within a single city are used.

Either way, as long as this country is willing to fight the War on Drugs, these organized crime syndicates will continue to suffer devastating blows to their bottom line.

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