Chinese foreign nationals are reportedly running illegal cannabis-growing farms in states such as Oklahoma, Oregon, and California using hordes of migrant labor directly from China.
They are running so many of them in fact that an average of 15 traditional farms are shut down every single day in Oklahoma, officials told NewsNation.
“For locals, even from the road, it’s easy to spot the Chinese operations by the fences that no one else has in the area, air conditioning units outside the barns, vans used to transport the Chinese migrants to the pot farms and expensive high-voltage electricity hookups to run fans and grow lights,” NewsNation noted.
Correction: ABUSED Chinese migrants*.
Larry Williams, a local farmer, told NewsNation that he’s seen the migrants sleeping in garages in really rotten conditions, including no heat even in below-zero weather.
(Video Credit: NewsNation)
He also spoke of stories going around aboutt the Chinese-owned growers arming themselves with AK-47s.
Meanwhile, according to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, all of the money being made by the farms is being sent back to mainland China.
“The Chinese are not dumb,” he told NewsNation. “I mean, they recognize it, and they can exploit and drive behavior of unsuspecting Oklahomans through this cash transaction.”
These farms can also be spotted in New Mexico, where migrants are being trafficked to them after crossing into the U.S. — migrants like L., a 41-year-old who came to the U.S. last year after struggling to find work at home.
“L. [said] he struggled to find work in China during the pandemic lockdown,” according to NPR. “He was forced to move out of his home after a state developer demolished his house to make way for a new project, but his new apartment was never built and he lost his deposit. When L. went to the developer’s office to protest, he got into a physical fight with employees of the company and was jailed.”
Everything changed when he saw an ad on social media about Chinese migrants earning big bucks in the U.S. working at cannabis farms.
“There was one influencer who kept messaging me his pay stubs in California showing how he was making 4-, sometimes $5,000 a month and telling me how easy it was,” L. told NPR.
And so he decided to come here himself. First, he flew to Turkey, then Ecuador. From there he made it to Mexico via buses, boats, and “a long walk through the hazardous Darien Gap jungle.”
“The journey was full of countless trials and tribulations,” he said of the trip, adding that he was robbed at least twice while in South America.
Once L. made it into the States, he was eventually taken to Bliss Farm, an illegal cannabis operation in New Mexico.
In China, weed is banned and seen as a propellant of social degeneracy
But here in the U.S. China is funding industrial weed farms to fuel Americans growing addiction
Wonder why pic.twitter.com/JcbyInRXeu
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) June 24, 2024
At Bliss Farm, workers typically grinded for 15 hours per day, after which they slept in wooden sheds with dirt floors. The farm was eventually shut down last summer.
“[It was] just a very disastrous grow,” state Cannabis Control Division boss Todd Stevens told NPR. “There was trash, water, fertilizers, nutrients, pesticides leaking into the ground. As soon as the officer stepped in, I think red flags started going off everywhere.”
The migrants themselves were in even worse shape.
“They had burns, visible burns on their hands and arms,” a local social services nonprofit boss told NPR. “The chemicals, they told me it was from the chemicals. They looked very malnourished.”
“L. and two other workers NPR interviewed were among those found at the farm,” NPR noted. “They’ve applied for asylum in the U.S. and their cases are pending. State authorities revoked Bliss Farm’s license and fined it $1 million for exceeding state grow limits.”
NPR, to its credit, admits that this is happening in part because New Mexico for its part legalized marijuana in 2021. FYI, only medicinal marijuana is legal in Oklahoma.
These farms have also attracted Chinese investors like Ella Hao, an accountant from China who moved to Los Angeles in 2020.
“In September 2020, following the recommendation of two other Chinese-speaking immigrants, Hao and her husband decided to invest about $30,000 in a New Mexico marijuana farm near the town of Shiprock,” according to NPR.
“We invested on the strength of the recommendation from someone we thought was a close friend,” Hao said.
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Author: Vivek Saxena
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