VIDEO: Drug Cartels War on America’s Wildlands
The drug cartels out of Mexico have absolutely wrought havoc throughout California forests and 27 other states throughout our great nation by growing black market illegal unregulated cannabis.
This week ALEC Digital Engagement Manager Leo Briceno and ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force Director Joe Trotter sat down with former California game warden Lt. John Nores, Jr., now retired, has been at the forefront of an under-reported battle against thousands of Mexican drug cartel members who grow toxic marijuana on U.S. soil, frequently on public lands, and sometimes remarkably close to population centers.
LEO BRICENO: For our listeners and viewers at home my name is Leo Briceno, and I am the digital engagement manager here at the American Legislative Exchange Council, and this is my colleague and friend Joe Trotter, who is the task force director of our Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. We are joined today by a very special guest, John Nores, who is the author of Hidden War. John, I know we have a lot to talk about, but what is the hidden war and where is it being fought?
JOHN NORES: The whole hidden war concept it goes back to game wardens getting involved and having to fight the drug cartels which was you know sounds kind of oxymoronic
The question has been over the last 15-20 years of what are game wardens doing in a drug war? What are they doing going on drug cases? When we started to assist the sheriff’s offices throughout the state of California back in like 2004 or 2005, it was really uncommon unconventional for us to be involved in those operations.
What people didn’t realize it’s got nothing to do with drugs, it’s got nothing to do with cannabis even, it’s not a demonization of cannabis regulated properly, it’s really a demonization on a threat to American public safety. Not only in California but throughout our entire great nation and environmental crime.
The bottom line is the drug cartels out of Mexico have absolutely wrought havoc throughout California forests and 27 other states throughout our great nation by growing black market illegal unregulated cannabis. The worst part about it is that they use these EPA banned toxic poisons under a trade named carbofuran. There’s a bunch of different derivatives but essentially an insecticide rodenticide that is so toxic and such a highly deadly hazardous material it was banned in America from being used 20 years ago by the EPA…
NORES: Even with the dilution factor EPA still found that that was too toxic for American consumers and banned it so these guys have this Molotov cocktail of just completely hazardous material poison they’re spraying all over these marijuana plants, and then you’re getting golden eagles and gray foxes ingesting this stuff or getting contaminated by it the second they fly onto into a grow site, and they’re dead within minutes on the ground…
NORES: Americans that are proud of our country that want to have open spaces and clean water for our kids and our grandkids and the next generation to see what a black-tailed deer or mule deer or steelhead trout looks like going through a creek what all these beautiful animals in these pristine areas that you know don’t only have wildlife and habitat value, they have a whole lot of mental health value for the American public…
For more, watch the interview at this link.