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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2017)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2017 Busts highlight pot smuggling from legal states Hard to tell if grown legally By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press Marijuana grown in Ore- gon and the handful of other states where pot is legal is being smuggled to other parts of America, authorities say. It’s often hard to tell if the traf- ficked weed was grown legally or illegally, but some say the fact that pot is leaving these states at all puts the marijuana industry at risk. Here is a look at some recent notable cases. Oregon State Police The Oregon State Police displays 113 pounds of high-quality marijuana found in the trunk of a Minnesota man’s car after he was stopped for speeding in Bly in February. Denver Colorado officials announced on June 28 they had cracked a huge smuggling ring that, under the cover of the state’s legal medical marijuana industry, shipped pot to a half- dozen other states. A Denver grand jury indicted 62 people and 12 busi- nesses. It was the largest illegal marijuana operation discov- ered since Colorado legalized recreational pot in 2012, Colo- rado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said. Federal agents also were involved in the bust. The indictment says the enterprise produced more than 100 pounds of illegal pot each month for shipment to Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, Ohio, Okla- homa and other states. The ring operated from 2012 until 2016, earning an estimated $200,000 a month, Coffman said. Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson thanked Coff- man for “exposing the influx of Colorado marijuana entering Nebraska,” the Lincoln Jour- nal Star newspaper reported. Nebraska and Oklahoma earlier filed a lawsuit against Colorado, saying legalized marijuana in the neighbor- ing state was spilling into Nebraska and Oklahoma, com- plicating their anti-drug efforts and draining state resources. The U.S. Supreme Court dis- missed the lawsuit without comment. Two of the men named in the Colorado indictment were arrested during an earlier traf- fic stop in Nebraska with 36 pounds of marijuana packed into two suitcases in their car. Bly An Oregon State Police trooper stopped a car that was driving just over the speed limit in a remote part of Ore- gon, and right away noticed there was only one key on the key ring. Trooper Austin Hopson’s training and experience told him that was a sign that the driver of the car he stopped on Feb. 12, 2016, was a mar- ijuana smuggler. The road has been known to be used by traf- fickers seeking to avoid law enforcement, authorities said. Plus, the passenger seat was full of items — including luggage and a musical instru- ment case — that would nor- mally be in the trunk, and the driver was nervous. Hopson asked the man, a Minnesotan who was a former cellist with the St. Paul Chamber Orches- tra, if he could search the car. “At this point, for the first time during the stop, the defendant would not make eye contact with Trooper Hopson. Instead, the defendant stared down at his paperwork as his hands began to shake uncon- trollably,” a deputy district attorney said in a filing with the Klamath County Circuit Court. The police searched the car without the driver’s con- sent. In the trunk, they found over 100 pounds of marijuana in vacuum-packed bags and a backpack full of cash, the fil- ing said. The driver was later let go and charges were dropped after a judge ruled police lacked probable cause to search the car. Llano, Texas A Texas man was piloting his plane after taking off from Medford, one of the coun- try’s richest marijuana-grow- ing regions, when the aircraft attracted authorities’ attention. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operation Center, in Southern California, began tracking the single-engine plane after observing it had a suspicious flight pattern and landed in Arizona to refuel, according to the U.S. Attor- ney’s Office for the western district of Texas. The pilot, Wayne Douglas Brunet, of Austin, landed at an unmanned airport in Bul- verde, Texas, but when he saw authorities on the ground wait- ing for him, he took off again. He then tried to land at the Lago Vista, Texas, airport but aborted the landing when he saw law enforcement officers again. Brunet then landed in Llano, Texas. He tried to run, tossing a duffel bag and a cellphone near the runway, but was arrested. Authorities seized 15 duffel bags filled with vacuum-sealed packages of 230 pounds of marijuana. Brunet pleaded guilty on June 28 to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and faces up to 20 years in fed- eral prison. According to a plea deal, he forfeits his 1969 Piper PA-30 Comanche airplane, $5,400 in cash and $3,000 in prepaid cards. Marijuana states try to curb smuggling, avert crackdown By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press PORTLAND — Well before Oregon legalized mar- ijuana, its verdant, wet for- ests made it an ideal place for growing the drug, which often ended up being funneled out of the state for big money. Now, officials suspect pot grown legally in Oregon and other states is also being smug- gled out, and the trafficking is putting America’s multibil- lion-dollar marijuana industry at risk. In response, pot-legal states are trying to clamp down on “diversion” even as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions presses for enforcement of fed- eral laws against marijuana. Tracking legal weed from the fields and greenhouses where it’s grown to the shops where it’s sold under names like Blueberry Kush and Cher- nobyl is their so far main pro- tective measure. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown recently signed into law a requirement that state regula- tors track from seed to store all marijuana grown for sale in Oregon’s legal market. So far, only recreational marijuana has been comprehensively tracked. State House Speaker Tina Kotek said lawmakers wanted to ensure “we’re pro- tecting the new industry that we’re supporting here.” “There was a real recog- nition that things could be changing in D.C.,” she said. The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board says it’s replacing its current tracking Nov. 1 with a “highly secure, reliable, scalable and flexible system.” California voters approved using a tracking system run by Lakeland, Florida-based Fran- well for its recreational pot market. Sales become legal Jan. 1. Franwell also tracks mari- juana, using bar-code and radio frequency identification labels on packaging and plants, in Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, Alaska and Michigan. “The tracking system is the most important tool a state has,” said Adam Crabtree, who A (2) (-) (-) (6) (-) (8) (9) (10) (12) (13) (-) (20) (-) (29) (30) (31) (32) (34) (35) (36) (38) (39) (43) (44) (45) (46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52) (53) (54) (56) (57) (58) (61) (63) (64) (65) (162) L KATU KOMO KING KOIN KIRO KGW KRCW KOPB KPTV KPDX KCPQ TBS KZJO ESPN ESPN2 NICK DISN FAM FMC LIFE ROOT FS1 SPIKE COM HIST A&E TLC DISC NGEO TNT AMC USA FOOD HGTV FX CNN FNC CNBC BRAV TCM SYFY RFD (2) (4) (5) (-) (7) (-) (3) (10) (12) (-) (13) (20) (22) (29) (30) (31) (32) (34) (35) (36) (38) (39) (43) (44) (45) (46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52) (53) (54) (56) (57) (58) (61) (63) (64) (65) (162) 6 ca’s marijuana. But he’s confi- dent tracking will help. “In the first 24 months, we’re going to have a good idea who is in the regulated market and who is in black market,” McGuire said. Oregon was the first state to decriminalize personal posses- sion, in 1973. It legalized med- ical marijuana in 1998, and recreational use in 2014. Before that, Anthony Tay- lor hid his large cannabis crop from aerial surveillance under a forest canopy east of Port- land, and tended it when there was barely enough light to see. “In those days, marijuana was REALLY illegal,” said Taylor, now a licensed mari- juana processor and lobbyist. “If you got caught growing the amounts we were growing, you were going to go to prison for a number of years.” Taylor believes it’s easier to grow illegally now because authorities lack the resources to sniff out every operation. And growers who sell outside the state can earn thousands of dollars per pound, he said. W A NTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber N orth w es t H a rdw oods • Lon gview , W A Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 VENDOR FAIR Saturday, August 19 th • 10 AM to 3 PM COME & SHOP Local Direct Sale Businesses in One Convient Location In The Loft at SUZANNE ELISE 101 Forest Dr., Seaside, OR Call 503-738-0307 if you have any questions THE DAILY ASTORIAN T UESDAY E VENING runs Denver-based Nation- wide Compliance Specialists Inc., which helps tax collec- tors track elusive, cash-heavy industries like the marijuana business. But the systems aren’t fool- proof. They rely on the users’ honesty, he said. “We have seen numerous examples of people ‘forget- ting’ to tag plants,” Crabtree said. Colorado’s tracking also doesn’t apply to home-grown plants and many noncommer- cial marijuana caregivers. In California, implement- ing a “fully operational, legal market” could take years, said state Sen. 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