Feds attempting to strip pot farms from public lands
By John Ellis, McClatchy Newspapers
FRESNO — Local law enforcement officials joined their federal counterparts Wednesday to deliver a unified message: marijuana farming operations in the foothills and mountains of the Sierra Nevada are dangerous to citizens and the environment.
Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Benjamin Wagner, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, joined local sheriffs Margaret Mims of Fresno County, John Anderson of Madera County and Bill Wittman of Tulare County at a town hall in Clovis to discuss their concerns over marijuana-growing operations on public lands.
“This is industrial scale, and it is happening on property that belongs to you,” Wagner told the audience.
