Vanguard | November 23, 2010 | 27 comments

Growing Marijuana on California's Public Land: Scenes From Vanguard

Adam_Yamaguchi

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In this scene from "Marijuana Wars, Part 1," Vanguard executive producer and correspondent Adam Yamaguchi embeds with MAVMIT, an elite task force that hikes into the California wilderness in search of marijuana grow sites operated by Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

California has become one of the leading producers of marijuana in the world--most of it produced by Mexican drug trafficking organizations. And the proceeds from marijuana have become a cash cow for traffickers, generating greater profits than cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin combined.

"Marijuana Wars Part 1" premieres Monday, November 22 at 9/8c on Current TV.

"Vanguard," airing weekly on Current TV Mondays at 9/8c, is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.

For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.
  1. groups:
    Make Marijuana Matter,   Current Video,   Vanguard,   Vanguard Weekly Special,   4 more
  2. tags:
    Marijuana,  Drugs,  Police,  California,  13 more
  3. credits:
    Adam_Yamaguchi Correspondent, dmfoster Producer
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27 comments // Growing Marijuana on California's Public Land: Scenes From Vanguard // Video

  • beenyboy
    • 0
      beenyboy  

    • The pot these MAVMIT clowns get in the show is chump change, in both quality and quantity, compared to the pot people are growing right next to their houses, or dummy structures put up to look like real houses. Fly over counties such as Humboldt and you can see countless huge greenhouses surrounding what appear to be homes out in the middle of nowhere. Curtilage laws, and the translucent reemay material that line the greenhouses give the slipper gardeners all the cover they need to rake in millions and laugh all the way to the bank, and at law enforcement and the poor grunts they chase through those archaic outdoor pot patches.

    • 8 months ago
  • hunzedog
    • +1
      hunzedog  

    • since you like telling other people what to do with there lives...
      its my turn...
      why dont you do a story about how while everybody in america is broke.
      wall street and prizons and drug companies are the only ones in america
      making any money...
      america has 4 times more people in prizon than china....

      do a story bout dat......why dont cha ?

      how bout a list of who pays your bills over there at current..

      "i bet its anti drug pro booze

      pro big oil pro insurance pro prison planet pro tobacco

      pro monsanto pro fbi pro cia
      what the fuck you got to say....?
      todays prizons are run by the KKK
      and you just look the other way.
      you say that they had freed the slaves...
      look at the jails...you still see them today
      poor men locked away
      from the cradle to the grave
      for a plant that you swear
      is made by the devil
      you folks are so wrong
      and dont think on my level.

      i want a world where cannabis dont cost nothing
      smoke all you want and just grow you a nuthrin
      and if we sell some for profitt we will be thrifty shoppers
      and be up there like you flying dem helicopters

      because this is my world too dammit if you like it or not
      because i smoke a plant you think i should be shot
      truth is cannabis cures and the truth never fails
      yall are the ones we should be throwin in jails.

      telling your lies making up stories
      all for your greed and your power and your glory..
      look at the science ...google the answer
      cannabis has been shown to help with breast cancer.

      and depression and arthritis and pain and with seizures
      you think your the ones who get to decide our futures
      glazo shit cleen killed 85,000 people
      the fda let them and they new it was lethal

      THATS 500 PEOPLE A MONTH
      AND NOW I JUST CANT STAND IT
      GO ARREST THOSE KILLERS FOR PROFFIT
      I FUCKING DEMAND IT.

      DONT FORGETT MARLBURO AND BUDWIESER TOO
      REMEMBER YOUR PROTECTING OUR HEALTH... ARENT YOU?
      WELL WHAT ABOUT ASPIRIN AND VIAGRA OR BEER
      THOSE DRUGS KILL FAR MORE PEOPLE PER YEAR

      and last time i looked cannabis never killed a person
      been used through out all of time I MOCK your perversion
      you say its the devils drug but it couldnt be clearer
      if you want to see the DEVIL ....just look in the MIRROR !!!!!!!!!!!!!

      ITS NOT ABOUT OUR SAFETY IS IT ?
      ITS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT YOUR CONTROL
      THE TRUTH IS WE HAVE YOU OUT NUMBERED
      I GOT A HUNDRED MILLION ON MY SIDE...........LETS ROLL !

      BONGWATER BOB 2010

      cant wait till next year....

      "

    • 1 year ago
  • smithmichael1218
  • juicie
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  

    • and it pisses me of to no fucking end that i can get 100 different anti-depressant drugs prescribed to me but i cant us a safer alternative....cannabis.....

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  

    • what if they made eating penises illegal...

      lets say your sitting on the couch eating a cock-meat sandwich....

      now its none of my business what you do with your life! and by all means if you like

      snacking on MAN POLES instead of KUDOS ...i say fuck it....MUNCH A BUNCH..'

      A.Y.

      eat all you want ....we will make more....

      but anyway your sitting on the couch eating your penis of choice when all of a sudden....the police bust in and arrest you for something that is none of their

      FUCKING BUSINESS........

      wouldnt that piss you off ?

      or would you just say ok...

      take my right to vote .... so i cant vote for someone who likes phallis food

      take my right to arms .... because penis eaters deserve to die anyway....

      why should they have the right to arm themselves....they consume cocks !

      they knew they were breaking the law when they put that penis in there mouth !

      and chewed and swallowed it up.....yuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm...

      wouldnt that piss you off ? \

      I know you have friends that smoke weed.....

      i know you have friends that are gay too.....

      what if i made a video web series that was anti-gay ....]

      and spouted out a bunch of rhetoric about how gays cost society because of

      their choices and they should be arrested...

      i ashure you that more people die from unprotected sex than cannabis

      and look at all the people who die from prescription meds and tobacco and

      booze and viagra and cock meat sandwiches..............

      MOST CRAZY SCHOOL SHOOTEM UPERS WERE ON PROZAC...

      they dont run that on the news.

      this is the front line on the war on drugs

      its right here where reason and truth and science

      meets lies and greed and controll and just plain evil....

      cannabis has been show to slow cancer tumors...

      meanwhile the guns our taxes pay for are protecting wall street and big oil and

      big pharma and big tobacco and big insurance and big warmongering.

      ITS REALLY NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT I DO WITH MY LIFE....

      who are you to judge anybody.....?

      nobody....

      20 million people have been arrested for cannabis....

      you really do need to check your math.

      you think they got them all..?..''

      or say one out of five....

      thats what i think...

      100 million is more like it....at least 75 million regular....

      they sold 700 tons of cannabis legally in california last year...

      i havent heard of a problem with drivin or crime...

      except only certain people can grow it...

      if everyone could grow cannabis this problem would be over in one growing season....

      no more border wars....\

      LEGALIZE CANNABIS

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • hunzedog:

      In time, the citizens of the States organizing the current Repeal Amendment
      will have gotten enough States on board our Constitutional Amendment
      referendum,..and the citizens of those 2/3 of the 50 States will vote to
      repeal the 1972 Prohibition which Nixon signed as the Flunkie Bureau's
      puppet to continue their War on Americans disguised as a War on Drugs.
      The Brits did the same thing in Jamaica long, long ago too. (Their idea of
      the extremist, draconian Rockefeller prohibitions here in New York in 1973.)
      During the 1600s, British merchants needed a slave labor work force to toil
      in the tropical Sun in their new colony. They did free their slaves long before
      the Emancipation Proclamation which Abraham Lincoln issued. But likely for
      economic reasons as well as moral/ethical issues. Yet the Jamaican British
      white colonial Government needed a way to protect themselves from the
      blacks fomenting Revolution, and the usual breakdown of Law & Order into
      anarchy, and mob incited violent crime that would have slaughtered them.
      Hence Prohibition was instituted as a premptive strike to instill fear in the
      hearts of the Jamacian blacks. Like the native people in Puerto Rico, they
      were poor people who greatly outnumbered the white property holders. In
      the strugle between the haves & have nots, you know what that will entail.

      The very thing, Cannabis, which enabled the kidnapped Africans to survive
      in Africa & Jamaica which the British white colonial whip crackers permitted
      while they were enslaved, became a thing of central repression overnight.
      It's the only way a minority of whites can usurp enough unlawful power to
      gain leverage over a majority of blacks. We're so conditioned to living under
      the UnConstitutional Prohibition which Hoover,Hearst, Anslinger, and DuPont
      engineered da Gummint to yoke us under their tyranny, that we forget one
      essential fact: IT'S ALREADY LEGAL !!! Per the Declaration of Independence preceding the Preamble of the Constitution, it's always been legal. You can't
      have life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness without your health, can you ?
      And realistically, you can't ensure your health in this world of carcinogens
      without a prophylactic medicine that'll prevent humans from being subjected
      to 90% of all known infectious & degenerative diseases. Prudent use of the
      herb has also successfully treated the symptoms of the rare,exotic diseases
      that might not even have existed before the onslaught of the 20th century.

      We only need to nullify the force & effect of the Prohibition Statute to
      Decriminalize Cannabis and industrial Hemp. Merry Xmas, Hunzedog.

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  
    • Image

    • WHY DONT YOU DO A GOOD STORY ABOUT HOW MANY FATHERS ARENT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS BECAUSE OF CANNABIS...

      YOU GOT NO RIGHT TO TRY TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT DO...

      THIS PLANET CAME WITH CANNABIS ON IT.

      AND ITS LOVELY

    • 1 year ago
  • kdoggy
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  

    • sung written and animated by stoners.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IhPI6sK1tc
      no pot heads in entertainment whatsoever....?
      no singers or movie stars or funny show writers ever smoke marijuana...
      100 million people smoke cannabis regularly...
      700 tons were sold legally in california last year...
      15 states have legal medical marijuana...
      iowa just resheduled marijuana as having medicinal value...

    • 1 year ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • hunzedog:

      If that 100 Million people live in the USA, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
      700 tons are smoked in California last year ? Well, after I buy my home in
      New York, that's where I'm heading to live. By crackee, I'm a Beverly Hillbilly !
      YE HA !!!

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  

    • Great post Adam. Without meaning to brown nose anyone... I'm
      not reputed for that... Your news article is hard core public need to
      know. And timely. You're a credit to Current.com. Please keep up
      the good work. The USA sorely needs more people like you. I Email
      blog and Bookmark all your posts, as I do Jack Herer's, Copperdragons
      et al. Thanks.

    • 1 year ago
  • cclark_productions
  • ii386
  • cclark_productions
    • 0
      cclark_productions  
    • ii386:

      yea man! these plants aren't hurting anyone, if anything there helping people that need it for medical reasons, like cancer patients or people with horrible pain. Money just keeps being thrown away...

    • 1 year ago
  • franklinpeanut
  • southrabbit
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • southrabbit:

      Yes, I have lots of questions for you. But unfortunately, your faulty logic, and
      smug signoff with the rhetoric of politician whores, has demotivated me from
      attempting to reason with you. I grew up in the 1960s. And call it a hippie idea
      if you like, but back then we never believed in paying any money at all for MJ.
      Because we saw it as a sacred medicinal herb. And we thus regarded it as
      unethical to taint one of God's great gifts to ease the unnecessary suffering
      of mankind by commercializing it, and debasing it with $. A noble sentiment.

      I'm an idealist, yes. But as a purely practical matter, the original Amercian
      colonists who produced the founding fathers of this country by fermenting
      the American Revolution out of pubs, nearly all smoked it. And more, they
      used both MJ & Hemp for barter to spare their Gold, Silver, and Copper coins.
      We of the 1960s were born under the same Uranus in Gemini star pattern
      which only comes around every 200 years. Many people I knew back then
      often bartered for seeds wherever possible, and grew their own for private
      purposes. Colonial money was printed on Hemp because it was a promisory
      note redeemable for Gold & Silver foreign coins(mostly Spanish, French, English)
      Counterfeiting then was punishable by death. And the warnings were printed
      right on the money. It's too bad modern Americans have not researched their
      roots. If they had, I feel that the phrases like " Waste not, want not ", and
      " Money doesn't grow on Trees " ( no pun intended ) would likely appeal to them.
      I hope the subtlety of my last line wasn't lost on you.

    • 1 year ago
  • juicie
    • +2
      juicie  

    • If they didn't seize peoples' land for growing, maybe our national forests would not get desecrated... and people would not have to associate with shady dealers...and we wouldn't have so much grown indoor to hide from CAMP, and would sequester greenhouse gasses instead of producing more.

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
    • +8
      hunzedog  

    • oh yeah ...what about tobacco...it kills 500,000 people every year and its got a big fat sticker on it that says FDA ....they make profitt off of death...
      dismantle those groups....\
      advandiea.....killed 85,000 people....PEOPLE WERE DYING AT A RATE OF 500 PER MONTH AND THE FDA DIDNT SAY SHIT....THAT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL..

      what about gmo foods or how we ruin this planet.,.that should be illegal.
      henry ford designed his cars to run on hemp oil

      look it up..

      hemp can save the planet but legal drug makers own our government...\

      not for long assholes........you aint the only ones with camoflage....

    • 1 year ago
  • cclark_productions
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • hunzedog:

      Back in the 1970s, there was a popular TV series entitled" The Gong Show "
      Whenever amateur contestants sang out of tune realy badly, or whenever
      their acting realy looked like acting, they won the prize for as Dan Ackroyd
      used to say on Saturday Night Live: " Bad Playhouse ". And with that, someone
      would bang the gong as if they were in an ancient Chinese Emperor's palace.
      I truely like the avatar you've chosen. We should bring back that show under
      a new concept for modern day hippies. To dispell sterotypes which have
      become a rutted cliche, we should feature the noteworthy accomplishments
      of people who have inhaled. And maybe we should call it the Bong Show.
      Because with that mind set the distinction between winners and loosers will
      depend on how well individuals can control their own minds, instead of others'
      minds. And what they DO with their time that contributes real measurable
      progress in their own communities to improve the lives of others.

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
  • FlexSF
  • hunzedog
    • +6
      hunzedog  

    • THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WANT CANNABIS LEGALIZED.
      IT IS THE GREED OF MODERN DAY SLAVE OWNERS/JAIL INDUSTRY THAT KEEPS CANNABIS ILLEGAL...WE SHOULD ALL HAVE CANNABIS GROWING IN OUR BACK YARD.
      THE DRUG DEALERS WOULD BE BROKE IF WE JUST GREW OUR OWN.
      WHY DONT THOSE COPS PLAY DRESS UP AND GO ARREST TOBACCO COMPANIES....OR BUDWIESER OR A OXYCONTON MILL..

      THEY SOLD 4 BILLION OXYCONTINS IN SOUTH FLORIDA THIS YEAR
      A DOZEN PEOPLE WILL DIE TODAY IN FLORIDA FROM MAN MADE LEGAL DRUGS....OPIATES.THAT THE FEDS MAKE PROFIT OFF OF....
      WHY DONT YOU REPORT ON THAT ? I KNOW WHY...

      I FIND THIS ABSURD. IT IS A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE.

    • 1 year ago

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