Area lawmakers request tougher penalties for trespass grows
Several California lawmakers, including Congressmen Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson, sent a letter last month to the U.S. Sentencing Commission requesting tougher penalties for marijuana growing on federal and some private lands.
The letter considers "the production and cultivation of controlled substances in particularly marijuana, on public lands or while trespassing on private property" to be a "direct threat to our environment and public safety."
"We are concerned that existing guidelines do not address the long term detrimental threats these operations pose to the environment and nearby communities."
The letter cites "over the past decade, drug cultivation has significantly expanded in terms of both geography and scale. In rural and remote areas, today's marijuana operations can involve tens of thousands of plants and industrial-scale farming practices. Drug trafficking organizations composed of both foreign and American criminals have profited greatly from this expansion, and are making forests and open spaces unsafe for working and recreation. High powered weapons are routinely found on remote cultivation sites, and criminals have demonstrated a willingness to use them in order to defend their plots."
"The damaging environmental impacts of trespass drug operations are documented in scientific literature and have elicited concern from a range of stakeholders including ranchers, farmers, local businesses, tribal leaders, environmental advocacy organizations, law enforcement officials, and local community leaders. "
"In addition to the impacts of drug cultivation on public lands, we would like to draw your attention to the increasing number of drug traffickers trespassing on private lands. Rural communities with large ranching, agriculture and timber lands are particularly vulnerable to criminals trespassing to cultivate and produce narcotics."
Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Congressman Doug Amalfa representing northeastern California and Congressman Sam Farr representing the central coast (including Santa Cruz) also signed the letter.
The letter's recipient, the U.S. Sentencing Commission was established in 1984 to monitor the impacts of existing federal sentencing guidelines and to recommend changes to Congress about any changes. The commission monitors how Federal courts apply the Federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines across the United States, in each court district.
Source: By Linda Williams
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