‘Operation Green Reaper’ brings pot arrests in Washington

‘Operation Green Reaper’ brings pot arrests
Federal agents and prosecutors are sending a message to commercial marijuana growers moving from British Columbia to Western Washington: Stay out.

The message came in the form of a task force of federal, state and local cops that swooped down at 6 a.m. Wednesday to conduct searches at about 14 locations and 10 vehicles in the Seattle area.

Their targets were two garden-supply companies and a mortgage broker that authorities say provide the horticultural supplies, financing and other support that make the indoor pot operations possible.

The marijuana grows — run primarily by motorcycle gangs or Vietnamese immigrant-organized crime groups — have “become a plague” in British Columbia, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Bartlett said.

With border security tightened after 9/11, some growers believed they could avoid having to run the gantlet at the U.S.-Canadian border by starting grow operations in Washington.

If found guilty of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, they face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life in prison and a $4 million fine.

Federal agents were poised to arrest several people named in the indictments, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Vogel, the prosecutor in charge of the 15-month-long investigation dubbed “Operation Green Reaper.”

Bartlett portrayed marijuana grow operations as violent and the houses they occupy as miniature toxic waste dumps, filled with pesticides, fertilizers, mold and debris. He said five people have been killed in Tacoma, Everett and Covington in connection with grow houses.

Arnold Moorin, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge, said about 450 grow houses have been raided in Washington in the past couple of years, and many of them had been booby-trapped.

First off, you have to love the militaristic names they come up with.  “Operation Green Reaper”?  What, was “Operation Gardening Apocalypse” taken?

In this story we’re seeing more of that talking point that I warned you about earlier: the indoor marijuana grow as a “toxic waste dump”.  Meth lab, grow op, what’s the difference – that’s the message they’re pushing here.

Look, just re-legalize it and everyone can grow their own, indoors or outdoors, and large commercial operations won’t have to be hermetically-sealed mold-factories in suburban neighborhoods.  What terrible thing will happen if marijuana is legal?  People might smoke it?

Guess what, we are smoking it already.  All you’re accomplishing with the “Green Reaper” operations is jacking up the price of marijuana, which makes it more lucrative for the motorcycle and Vietnamese gangs you’re fighting against.  (Of course, that’s the point of the Drug War: the more money you throw at it the worse the problem becomes which then requires that you throw more money at it.  Cops win, prisons win, politicians win, and drug dealers win.)