Los Angeles (AP) – There are thousands of illegal marijuana farms across the country.
When the federal government decided to escalate one of the largest raids since President Donald Trump in January, she chose the largest legal breeder in California.
Almost two weeks later, the reason for the federal attack on two Glasthouse Farm locations northwest of Los Angeles remains unclear and has led to speculation. Some say that the raid should illegally send a terrifying message in the United States – but also the legal cannabis industry’s legal cannabis industry.
In the meantime, the Republican Trump government, with strongly democratic California, has able to finance everything, from high-speed railway to forest fire easier, so that it is also possible that the glass house was drawn into a broader conflict between the White House and Sacramento.
“There are many other places where you can find illegal workers,” said political consultant Adam Spiker, who advises cannabi companies. “Many people believe that there is a hint of politics in this point. It is the implementation of the federal government to California to meet cannabis.”
What happened during the raids?
On July 10, the US immigration and customs and border protection officers carried out a search command for the farms of Glass House in Karpinterien and Camarillo, as court files show.
At the Camarillo location, armored vehicles blocked the road, which is lined with fields and greenhouses, as masked agents that were used on the property. An agricultural worker who fell from a greenhouse roof when he ran to hide later died of his injuries.
Outside the farm, the officials with demonstrators and tear gas to dispel them, wrote a federal representative in court files. According to the agent, a demonstrator threw a gas canister back to border police officers. Another demonstrator searched for by the FBI seemed to fire a weapon.
More than 360 people were arrested, most of them who are mostly without legal status in the country. George Retes, who works as a security officer and was held for three days, for the four US citizens, including the 25 -year -old veteran of the US Army.
The operation was more than a month in a longer procedure in Southern California, which was originally centered in Los Angeles, where local officials say that the federal actions spread fear in immigrant communities.
Why Glass House?
No cannabis was confiscated and the criminal search commands used to enter the farm locations were under court seal. The authorities refused to share them with the Associated Press.
The government said that business was being examined for potential child labor, human trafficking and other abuses. Agents found 14 children in one place. No information was published by the minors.
The company was not charged.
Federal and state laws enable children aged 12 and over to work in agriculture under certain conditions, although no one is allowed to work in the cannabis industry under the age of 21.
Company officials did not respond to calls or e -mails. In a brief explanation of the social platform X, Glass House was complied with compliance with immigration and immigration order and “never knowingly violated the applicable attitudes and no minors”.
Some believe
According to the raid, United Farm Workers’ largest union of agricultural workers published an urgent message to his social media accounts, since marihuana is illegal according to the federal law, workers who are not US citizens should avoid jobs in the cannabis industry, including state-licensed institutions.
“We know that this is unfair,” said it, “but we encourage you to protect yourself and your family.”
Industry experts refer to undesirable public relations that the company had received after the competing Catalyst Cannabis Co. had submitted a lawsuit from 2023, in which it was said that Glass House “became one of the largest, if not the largest black marketer in cannabis in the state of California”. The lawsuit, which was officially submitted by Catalyst Parent 562 Discount Med Inc.
Who leads the farm sites in Glass House?
The company was founded by Kyle Kazan, a former police officer in South California and special educator, who became cannabis investor, as well as by Graham Farrar, a Santa Barbara Tech entrepreneur.
Glass House began to breed cannabis in a greenhouse in Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County when flowering operations were once reduced. Later it bought real estate in Camarillo in neighboring Ventura County for 93 million US dollars with six greenhouses and was used to grow tomatoes and cucumbers.
So far, two of the greenhouses have been converted into cannabis. The relatives of the workers said that tomatoes in other greenhouses were still grown at the location.
How did Glass House do that?
The raids have moved a company that alternately admire and admired and insulted on the country’s largest legal market because of its meteoric escalate.
The Glass House is the largest legal fee of the state that puts its next competitors in the shade. Glass House Farms is part of the wider company -Glass House brands that have other companies that produce cannabis products.
“There is no farmer in California who can compete with them on a scale,” said Sam Rodriguez Sam Rodriguez in Sacramento.
Despite the adoption of proposition 64 in 2016, many legal operators were considered to be a water catchment area in 2016 to legitimize and control California Marijuana industry in California. In 2018, when retail transactions could be opened, California became the largest legal market worldwide.
However, the operators were exposed to high taxes, seven -digit start costs, and for many consumers the tax -free illegal market remained a better business.
But when other companies collapsed, the Glass House started in a time when a gigantic part of the state’s legal market was in the crisis, envy and suspicion of competitors, which was largely due to the competition of the stalwart underground market.
In a recent call with investors, Kazan said that the company’s turnover was reached by 45 million US dollars in the first quarter – by 49% in the same period of the previous year. He said he was hopeful for a federal class that would end the classification of marijuana as a drug of schedule I alongside heroin and LSD.
“However, we are a company that does not require federal legalization for survival,” said Kazan.
Glass House’s turnover increased, so many others decreased in the whole state.
“I am always firmly convinced that this is not the case, but when the cannabis industry becomes America’s next massive normalized industry, and I look forward to participating with investors in the corresponding reward that will bring this change,” he said.
