Weed Country (2013) s01e02 Episode Script
Smugglers Blues
Previously on "Weed Country" Pot season has begun, and the battle lines are drawn.
I got to tell you, Mrs.
Boutin, these are some of the nicest plants.
We're gonna be hoisting the flag of civil disobedience, cops be damned.
A mother of a 3-year-old child reaches out to Nate for help.
The idea that I would back down when children's lives are at stake? I can't do that.
Police search for illegal grows.
Here you have one on your left.
Right about your two to three, Ross.
I think a lot of people have underestimated what we're dealing with.
This is big money to them.
And a fallen dispensary owner, desperate to stay out of jail and keep his business thriving heads to the emerald triangle.
Whoever's left standing after this cannabis war stands to make a lot of money.
Deep in the heart of the northern California mountains, marijuana growing season is underway.
You're growing in your front yard.
Well, yeah.
This is the emerald triangle.
Ground zero for a multi-billion-dollar marijuana industry.
Originally comprised of three counties covering 10,000 square miles, it's now growing out of control.
I mean, look at the size of that.
It's a decades old battle between cops It is a problem at epidemic proportions.
Dealers - It's just a business that can't fail.
And growers.
There's nothing more American than a man producing a product that people want.
They stand to make millions or be locked up for years.
Arguably, I just committed a felony.
I've got somebody running.
This is weed country.
Yeah, I'm breaking the law on TV.
So what? Synch & corrections by Vegemite Damn it.
He doesn't know what he's dealing with.
It is the beginning of the marijuana eradication season.
Hey, sheriff.
Wondered if I could go over a couple things with you if you got time.
Sure.
This time of year, sheriff John Lopey and sergeant Mike Gilley dedicate themselves full time to finding and destroying illegal pot growers.
We believe there's a site up in here somewhere.
We had some informant information about gardens being in there.
Informants alerted Gilleyto a possible grow site high up in the mountains.
Sure is some dangerous terrain there.
Their next move Probably got armed growers.
Yeah, that is a big concern.
go there and take it down.
This is very dangerous, very complex work.
You know, you've got to find these cultivation sites, and with over 6,000 square miles of Siskiyou county, that's a challenge.
Okay, let's see what we can find.
We're up here in Redding, 200-some miles from Vallejo.
Facing an eight-year prison sentence, Matt Shotwell has come north looking to get back into the weed business without going back to jail.
I have an agenda for this trip up north.
I need to get an expert, I need to get farmers, and I need to get some pounds.
I need to bring all of that back to Vallejo, otherwise, I'll lose my house.
I'll lose my reputation.
I'm gonna lose my entire life.
And if the cops catch wind of what I'm doing, they could put me in jail, and that's a chance that I'll have to take.
Greenwell back in its heyday, it was cracking.
We're the first dispensary in downtown Vallejo.
We skyrocketed in less than two years to becoming the biggest, most popular dispensary in the entire county.
Then they decided to pull the rug out from underneath me.
Shotwell's lawyer has arranged a meeting with B.
E.
Smith, an icon in the cannabis community.
This guy's a legend up here.
He's also done federal time.
Famous for making potent marijuana for over three decades, B.
E.
Smith is an example of what can happen when a pot grower challenges the law.
He grew weed in his front yard as allowed by California law, but the feds made an example of him.
32 federal deputies hauled him off to prison, where he served two years for cultivation.
When I get out, I'm gonna smoke a big joint.
The reclusive grower agreed to meet in a public setting.
You're a little paranoid when you're in this business, and I have absolutely no idea what B.
E.
Smith is gonna say to me.
- How you doing, sir? - Good.
How are you? I'm all right.
My name is Matt Shotwell.
Thanks for coming.
My friend and attorney, Tom Ballanco.
I'm really glad I got to meet you guys.
Well, you're in good hands.
And one thing you'll find when you talk to B.
E.
is that B.
E.
is a remarkable person.
He remains the only person I've ever met who's read the California penal code cover to cover and the vehicle code and knows how those procedures work intimately.
All right.
I got busted February 21st, 9:30 A.
M.
, and I'm on a one-man mission to clear my name, to provide for myself, you know? I can't go back to the merchant marines, so I need a cannabis expert that can help me with my legal case.
So that's why I came up here to find you.
It's all up to you.
You're the defendant, but you need to go on the offense.
I'm still learning the lay of the land.
I feel like a duck out of water.
The government is fiction.
You can control the government.
But you can only do it through wrong.
Bill of rights, declaration of independence, all the way back to the magna carta, back to 1215.
You know, I hear the words he's saying, but I don't really understand what we were talking about.
The only people who can make us free are ourselves.
Well, I'm ready.
I'm definitely ready to stand up for my rights.
We're gonna boogie.
I'll buy your coffee.
At a certain point in the conversation, he didn't really want to have a conversation anymore, which I thought was strange.
I can't stay in a place with a lot of people.
I've got PTSD from the Vietnam war.
Okay.
I got to get back home.
Okay.
You can't go to law school to learn this.
It's a good place to start when you come up my house.
He asks me to his house.
I was kind of nervous about that.
His farm is in the middle of nowhere.
I'm by myself.
So now I'm wondering if something bad happens, what can I do to protect myself? You should come up and visit with me, and we'll talk about your case more.
You can see my farm.
All righty.
Well, I'll follow you up all right.
- Take care.
Good luck.
- Thank you, sir.
The script has been flipped on me, and now I got to come up into their dispensary, the emerald triangle.
I always had the power, it seemed, at greenwell, behind the desk.
I knew these guys were coming to me.
I knew they wanted to sell me their product, and I was relatively safe behind my nice desk in my office.
I am in trouble.
And I hope that I'm not making a big mistake.
We're starting to get into an area where there's a lot of medical marijuana.
Sergeant Gilley and detective Jones are heading to investigate a suspected illegal marijuana farm.
From here on down, it's gonna get pretty heavy.
Though the area is thick with legitimate medical cannabis farms, Gilley knows that illegal pot-growing operations often hide in plain sight amongst the legal.
Always done well up here.
Yeah, look around.
Grower Nate Morris returns to his farm for the first time after meeting Catherine Jacobson and her son, Ben.
What a cute kid.
Thanks.
Ben suffers from 10 to 12 epileptic seizures a day, any one of which could take his life.
When all other medical treatments failed, his mother tried non-psychoactive cannabis.
It worked.
My major hurdle right now is the drug.
I don't know how to make it.
That I could definitely help with.
Nate is developing plants that provide him with an oil-based extract he could use to help Ben get over his seizures.
Awesome.
When medical science wants to analyze the healing properties of a plant, step one is to chemically isolate one specific chemical and then test that chemical.
To me, that's just a fundamentally flawed approach.
If you're not testing that plant, you are falling to properly investigate that organism.
You need to be a farmer.
But according to federal law, farming marijuana is illegal.
Everybody who grows medical cannabis is in legal jeopardy, and punishments for providing a controlled substance to a minor are extreme.
I am terrified of going to jail over this, but at the same time, there's children's lives at stake.
You know, how do you not? We're gonna come in from above.
We'll have the sun at our back.
They'll have the sun in their eyes.
Lieutenant Matt Thomson and detective Don Adams are leading their team into the suspicious site that was spotted from the air.
Here you have one on your left.
Right about at your two to three, Ross.
My name's Donald Adams.
I'm a detective with the Jackson county sheriff's office.
I've been with the sheriff's office for almost 12 years.
Adams must lead his team carefully.
Growers routinely leave armed booby traps.
We did find where they had tied rattlesnakes to trees, and they cut the rattles off so that, obviously, you can't hear them.
You know, there's no warning sign.
For Thomson, walking into a grow site is like stepping into a minefield.
There's a lot of dangers involved with these investigations.
They know the lay of the land.
You know, they're armed generally with long rifles of some sort.
They're gonna hold their ground and fight.
All right, dude, listen.
don't say anything.
Be cool.
My heart just stopped.
No matter what that guy says, don't do anything dumb.
Jackson county marijuana eradication team members Don Adams and Matt Thomson have entered an illegal grow site.
You never know what's gonna happen.
We don't know.
They control it.
They dictate what we're gonna have to do.
You hope that they're just gonna run or throw their hands up and lay down, you know? But you don't know.
All around there is evidence of an illegal grow in the making, but no plants and no suspects.
The growers brazenly camp out in areas frequented by hunters and hikers.
They say we're the enemy.
You know, we're the ones between them and a profit.
Unfortunately, they don't distinguish us from the general public when it comes to the woods.
These marijuana growers are out in public lands where people hike, they camp, and they hunt.
It's very dangerous to the public.
These plants are my babies.
Now they're growing and getting big, you know, so that you can grow lots of bud.
For Tawni and Mike Boutin, growing big outdoor plants means more pot and more profit.
It also makes them a target to the police and to rippers, people who steal a grower's crop.
You okay, bud? Lassik! What do you got? That guy's, like, driving way too slow, just being a little bit too concerned about what I'm about or what I have here.
A mysterious vehicle appears to be casing Boutin's farm.
He looks right at me.
He sees that I want to say, "hey, dude.
What's up?" And he's just gonna keep going.
I'm not going anywhere.
One of the most disturbing things to me is the car that drives by way too slow.
You're just sending a red flag to me that you're trying to check me out.
Boutin is concerned it could be a cop or worse, someone who could do harm to him or his family.
Yo! There are people who spend a little time in the spring and summer and identify and locate marijuana gardens, particularly ones that aren't well defended or well guarded, and then they come back in the fall, and they take the crop.
And you could be robbed at gunpoint.
And, so, I have to suspect everybody.
Hey! Hey! Really, dude? I don't know what your story is, man, but this is, like, bizarre.
The best I can do is put a presence out that deters people who are just opportunists.
Here he comes right now.
Dude, what is your story? What is your story? Starting to get that ugly [Bleep.]
rising up in me right now.
Country folk don't act like that.
Good men don't act like that.
That guy's pissing me off, whether he's a fed or not.
I don't care.
I don't care who he is.
Wow.
I'm in the [Bleep.]
mountains.
Look at that gorge.
Far from his home in Vallejo, Matt Shotwell follows notorious marijuana farmer B.
E.
Smith deep into the emerald triangle.
I'm surrounded on both sides Cliffs.
Shotwell needs B.
E.
'S advice on how to get his charges reduced.
But the reclusive grower could be setting Shotwell up for an ambush.
So, I'm driving up through the mountains, and no one knew where I was going.
I've heard these stories about the emerald triangle.
This isn't one of those places you just go for fun.
You can't just walk up to a bar, "hey, can I buy some pot?" Bang! You're probably dead.
[Bleep.]
He's speeding up.
Why is he speeding up like that? He's got no reason to trust me.
I could very easily be followed by a cop, I could be GPS tracked by the police, or he could think that I'm an undercover, myself.
When you're in an illegal business, you're paranoid.
Really wish I'd brought a gun with me is what I really wish I did.
Really wish I'd brought a gun with me is what I really wish I did.
Matt Shotwell has been led deep into the forests of the emerald triangle by cannabis farmer B.
E.
Smith.
This must be it.
Holy Oh, my God.
He's got plants growing right in the middle of his yard.
Holy [Bleep.]
! You're growing in your front yard.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
That's the purpose.
Get the best of everything.
That is unbelievable.
Can we check out some of your plants? Oh, make yourself at home, buddy.
Look at these things.
I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but they're all so perfect.
Every one of them is green.
There's not one yellow leaf on any one of them.
This guy knows what the hell he's doing.
Hey, what's up, man? - Matt.
Aaron.
- Good to meet you.
Working the farm with B.
E.
is his grandson, Aaron, a third-generation pot farmer learning the trade.
My great uncle, my father, my brother All the men in our family have grown weed or are growing weed.
Damn, that smells so good.
That's the chronic, baby.
I love it.
You need to make a cologne like this.
Sergeant Mike Gilleyand his partner, Jason Jones, smell marijuana coming from the woods nearby.
Oh, yeah.
There it is.
Yeah.
We base a lot of our missions on picking up odors.
The later in the season it gets, the more prolific the odors are because the plants start to manufacture resin.
We find gardens that way quite frequently.
There it is.
Oh, yeah.
You got it.
See, you got all this down here in this here.
I definitely don't smell it over here.
This is the area where the snitch said to look.
Good intel.
So, what are you gonna do with all your cannabis when you harvest? It'll go to my patients that I have that I'm growing for.
And, so Dude, I would love to have a garden like this.
How long have you been growing on this plot right here? I started growing in 1979.
Wow.
You've been growing longer than I've been walking on the planet.
What are the rules up here in this area? I mean, as far as county limits to grow.
Well, state law doesn't have a limit.
They only caught me with 800 plants.
I think that they're gonna try to scare me.
Of course they will.
All I can tell you is if you want justice, go to a whorehouse.
And if you want to get [Bleep.]
go to a courthouse.
Yeah.
I've done time because I'm out in front, and they got to take someone down.
I'm experienced at walking point.
I did it in Vietnam.
You know, ain't no big deal to walk point in America, or I thought.
One thing about liberties are you have to fight for them, and what I'm gonna do is show you how to do it.
I will not be satisfied until I'm whacking plants down.
The smallest clue could lead to a large bust.
See those valves in a row? Yeah.
That's a hell of a lot of water coming out here.
That line goes to something down there.
Water lines disappearing into the woods are a dead giveaway.
Gilleyand his partner are footsteps away from taking down the grow.
Sure picked a hot day to do this, didn't we? I want you to read the definition of marijuana.
Marijuana means, "all parts of the plant cannabis sativa I.
, whether growing or not.
" Okay, that's enough.
So, if you're growing indica, that would be one of the defenses I would use in your case.
Cannabis typically comes in two forms, indica and sativa.
Both have narcotic properties, but according to the laws as they are written, only one, sativa, qualifies as marijuana.
- I was growing indica.
- Okay.
You wasn't growing marijuana, then, were you? Not according to that definition.
That is correct.
It's brilliant.
Brilliant.
You beat them by their own law.
I would use it as a defense.
Goes all the way to drainage.
It's a car battery.
There's a need to be filled, and there's money on the table.
If I can be the person to bring that together Maybe we'll have a chat about working out something mutually beneficial.
Sergeant Mike Gilleyand deputy Jason Jones sneak up on an illegal grow.
Booby traps line the site, evidence that the growers are serious about protecting their crop and violent retaliation is a sure bet.
But as they enter the camp Whoever set the traps heard them coming and fled.
Just walked into is a marijuana grow.
We've got a drying station, a stove, a lot of chemical product for fertilizer, a nice water pump to pull in from the creek below.
You can see behind us we've got some marijuana plants.
And downhill, we got some more nurseries, some more starting holes here.
These plants here are actually budding.
You can see, like, this plant here has got some really good bud on it.
They were getting pretty close to where they were gonna pull them.
Destroying the garden sends a strong message to the growers when they return to their camp.
I think we had somewhere around 100 plants.
With pressure from officers like Gilley and Jones, another grow site has been taken down, but there's more work to be done.
We have a lot of other bigger targets to deal with right now.
It's kind of snowballing in this county.
You know, we'll get this one wrapped up, move on to the next one.
There's so many things that people assume in their mind when you talk about working on a marijuana farm.
People think that it's a way to get rich, that it's a work-free drug place.
There's no such thing as a lazy hippie growing medical-grade cannabis.
Growing cannabis in the emerald triangle is hard enough.
Finding trustworthy help to run a marijuana farm can be just as challenging.
The last guy I had up here got himself arrested.
The first chance he had to go to town, whether it's his fault or not, he ended up getting himself caught up in some police action and now he's on probation.
It put Tawni way, way, way behind at a very, very important time of the year.
What are you guys doing? Just waiting to see you.
Boutin has hired Taylor.
Good to see you.
He's the 18-year-old son of Mike's friend, Bobby.
Nice to meet you.
He's a kid who's never had a job.
He doesn't really know anything about marijuana production.
So I must impart as much as I can to him of everything that I've learned.
Anything that I know this summer, I'm gonna teach him.
I was so happy that you guys Like, number one, you, Taylor, like, wanted to actually come and do the job, and, number two, Bobby, that you, like, trusted us enough that you felt like, you know, he would be safe here and that it would be a good thing.
Taylor's dad, Bobby, uses cannabis to ease his pain.
I had this major accident probably about 22 years back and messed myself up quite well.
I met Mike and Tawni through compassionate cannabis community, and we've grown to be basically family.
Wouldn't be here if I didn't trust you, but my two rule breakers are this No lying, no stealing.
Taylor's known the Boutins for a couple of years now.
I take this as a great responsibility.
You know, I'll treat him as if he's my own son.
Taylor is 18, and it was his decision.
- Peace and wellness.
- I love you, dad.
I am concerned that the cops may come in, and any parent would be.
- Thank you, guys.
- Drive safe, dad.
Everybody in the family is proud of him and behind him 100%.
What's there, like 50 or 60 plants out here? Yeah, about 60 now.
That's what it looked like.
So, is there a reason why you don't do, like, 500 plants out here? I'm not greedy, and I don't need that money.
Oh, okay.
B.
E.
Smith's farm is pretty cool.
There's money to be made here.
- So, B.
E.
- Yes, sir? After all the patients get the medicine that they need, you gonna have a surplus? I will probably have a surplus.
I know some clubs in Vallejo that desperately need some medicine.
So, what do you think about after you have your surplus maybe we'll have a chat about maybe working out something mutually beneficial.
An early outdoor harvest is highly valuable, and Matt Shotwell sees an opportunity to cash in.
If you wait to give the surplus on the end, by then, you'll have so much more competition when crop-tober comes, because once October comes, then everybody else harvests theirs, they won't need it.
They'll be like, "we're good.
" And then you'll get $1,000 a pound for it.
- Yeah.
I know.
- One strategy that I would have for you is that I could get it moved to you to some clubs that need it now.
So, you just think about that, 'cause around September time, you're gonna It's okay, buddy.
It's okay.
Hey, buddy.
How you doing? I'm doing really well.
It's good to see you.
Grower Nate Morris lives nearby I'm doing well.
How have you been? and can't resist the chance to look in on B.
E.
's early harvest.
Say hi to Nate.
B.
E.
, wow.
He's on a very short list of people that I would call one of my heroes.
- Nate? - Matt.
Good to meet you, Matt.
B.
E.
is a master at growing various strands designed to produce specific physical results.
For Nate, this is an opportunity to compare B.
E.
's plants with his own.
I'm certainly not gonna pass up an opportunity to come visit and check out his genetics.
This is my tragic.
This is my seed I started about seven years ago.
It's an arcata trainwreck bred with a magic male.
These strands are some of the best weed on the planet, and there's certain strands that he's bred in with other strands.
It's kind of a living science experiment.
The prices were going ridiculous a few years ago.
They're starting to come back up, but they're, like Super low like last year.
Yeah, it was it was getting nuts there for a while.
When I got in the business back in 1979, it was $1,100 a pound.
And then when it went up, the highest it's ever went up was $4,800 a pound.
$4,800.
Now it's back down to $1,000, you know, $1,500 a pound.
Totally.
I'd be okay with $1,000 or $1,500 a pound if it that was getting passed on to the consumer.
Nate, that's exactly how I feel, buddy.
We got to band together or the middleman's gonna take the business away from us.
Absolutely.
And they don't produce nothing.
No.
It's a parasite on the system.
Exactly.
Just like Wall Street.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly the same deal.
Brokers, middlemans, providers, caregivers The bud's got to get from a farm to somebody's pipe one way or another.
Patients need medicine.
I depend on making a living out of that business.
Some people agree with that.
Some people don't.
I don't really give a [Bleep.]
That's what I do, and that's what I'm gonna keep on doing.
But, hey, they can come out and buy private property and get blisters on their hands like we do.
Yeah.
Hey, the more the merrier.
Hey, man.
You need help? No, not really, but you know what? Come here, though.
What's up? Boutin is worried about more unwanted visitors.
I want to start bringing you up to speed on something.
He is constantly on the lookout for thieves and cops.
I heard a little bit of unusual activity, so I just kind of came to survey what I could survey from this spot.
I'm worried about somebody being able to drive in and just, boom, six guys jump out.
If that happens, it's not your job to defend weed.
It's your job to, like, run like hell that direction.
I'm not trying to be paranoid.
It's just that catching us by surprise could be the death of the farm, could be the death of somebody that I love.
It could be the death of me.
All right, so, I want to go on a little instructional trip, start showing you some of the things you need to know about the road.
Oh, cool.
Thanks, Mike.
Taylor is learning all about farm life, but now Boutin's about to give him tips on one of the more risky sides of the weed trade smuggling.
I have to teach him how to stay out of jail.
The last kid didn't get that lesson.
With a one-pound bag of marijuana carefully hidden, Boutin begins the run.
Taylor takes in every word and videotapes the run to review later.
There's a million things.
I don't expect you to remember them all today, but if you're going to have a future with grace farm and you're going to become a transporter, I want to be confident that you know how to think.
I feel a great weight of responsibility to make sure that Taylor leaves here better than he showed up.
Boutin turns on the radar detector.
If I come out here, boom, I can swing right in now and dime in that corner right off against that yellow line, accelerate off of it.
Bing, off the inside of this one.
That's how you make time.
Ka alert.
"Ka" refers to the band frequency of police radar guns.
Uh-oh.
Damn it.
Ka alert.
Uh-oh.
Mike Boutin is training his new farmhand by taking him on a smuggling run when something goes horribly wrong.
All right, dude.
Listen.
You know what? Don't say anything.
Be cool.
Put your hands where everybody can see them and keep that camera rolling no matter what that guy says.
He doesn't know who he's dealing with.
Morning.
Hey, how are you? - You were doing 83.
I was in a little bit of a hurry, 'cause I'm supposed to be at 9:00 to meet my brother Ray with ypd.
Oh, Ray Boutin.
Yeah, Ray's my little younger brother.
Yeah, I do apologize for that, too.
I generally wouldn't have been going up right through there like that.
I mean, this is, like, right where you guys live.
Everybody knows that.
But 83 was, you know, certainly out of line, and I admit that.
Okay.
Say hi to Ray for me.
I will, and, listen, I do apologize.
Appreciate it.
- Take care.
Have a good one.
- Thank you.
You got the whole thing? Awesome, dude.
My heart just stopped, and just to think of what could have happened.
For Mike Boutin, a simple traffic stop I just got pulled over with some weed.
could mean four years in prison.
If you can haul one, you can haul 100.
Tell me about your case.
What are you charged with? Growers B.
E.
and Nate grill dispensery owner Matt Shotwell.
Felony cultivation, sales, director-operator of an illegal business.
Shotwell is well out of his element and is already at risk if he's caught trying to get back into the weed business.
How many plants did you have? You kind of dodged a bullet.
If you had over 1,000, that would have been a 40-year mandatory minimum.
I only had 87 and the feds took me in.
- No kidding.
- Yeah.
So, where you going from here? Well, my plan now is to acquire some cannabis.
You know, and connect growers to patients, growers to new co-op.
So There's a need to be filled and there's money on the table, and if I can be the person to bring that together, it's gonna be beautiful.
These clubs in Vallejo that are getting You know, they're opening and closing, reopening in different places, and it's a cat-and-mouse game with the police and us.
Yeah.
That's a sketchy place to bring weed to.
I wouldn't be caught dead in a place like that.
I mean, if they're always going to jail and then I roll up with a bag of weed, I would expect to go to jail.
Yeah, you'd probably go to jail.
I don't want to speak for B.
E.
, but, personally, I like the idea of growers and patients in need having a direct connection, cutting out as many middlemen as possible.
Dispensaries, at this moment in history, scare the hell out of me.
So, now it's farmer to patient.
That's what you guys are feeling.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
There's a gentleman named Mike Boutin who you might want to talk to him.
He's a farmer.
He has his own collective.
I believe he also does work with other collectives.
Might be our hemp runner.
You just got to be really careful.
Really careful and really smart.
People that are bold and take big risks and open up shops with 800 plants, props to them.
But the charges that he's up against are serious charges.
I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but a sinking ship is not something that you want to jump aboard.
I'm kind of running out of options here.
Pretty much everything in my life that's important to me is on the line.
My freedom's at stake.
I'm trying to not go to jail, 'cause harvest is coming.
So I guess I only have a really short period, and, so, I need to capitalize on that.
I'm feeling kind of like I'm running out of options and trapped in a sense.
If I don't start fixing the holes in this boat fast, I'm gonna sink.
Having narrowly escaped arrest, Boutin continues his smuggling run with Taylor while carrying a one-pound bag of marijuana.
I'll be right back.
Don't do anything dumb.
In the middle of a marijuana smuggling run, Boutin unexpectedly stops at the Yreka police station.
Taylor, his new farmhand, anxiously awaits outside with a pound of weed and a four-year prison sentence sitting in the back seat.
What's all that about? Uh I had to have a little talk with my brother.
My brother's a cop, and for the first time ever, I dropped my brother's name with the chp, and I wanted him to know I was sorry for that, and that's something that you say in person.
He told me that there's a bull's-eye on your back.
He's basically telling me to watch out for myself.
Sorry to surprise you with that, but, listen, you know what? He's a good man.
He's a good cop.
He's not about trying to rid America of weed.
He's about trying to rid his town of bad men.
After clearing things up with his brother, Boutin heads out to make his delivery.
You would think that I'm a marijuana guy, so I must be this, I must be that.
You'd be wrong.
I'm an Evangelical Christian man who believes of the God of the Bible.
I believe in law and order.
I live in full civil disobedience because I think that the prohibition against marijuana is just so inhumane and barbaric when you walk it out to its logical conclusion.
You want to have a few beers? That used to get you in jail.
We recognize that was stupidity.
We ought to be able to figure out it's the same.
Clear? Yeah, we're good back here.
Lieutenant Matt Thompson continues his relentless search to take down growers in the emerald triangle.
Well, right now, we're following up leads.
We actually got a vehicle identified.
We got some suspects identified.
We're thinking now we probably got more than just one grow.
Okay.
Here we go.
He missed a big capture during a raid in the woods.
Now he takes to the air, determined to find the next violator and bring them down.
What's up, buddy? Why? What happened? What do you mean they took everything? Tell me you're [Bleep.]
me.
It's all gone? Oh [Bleep.]
.
I just got a call that my garden has been cut down.
What the am I gonna do now? Synch & corrections by Vegemite
I got to tell you, Mrs.
Boutin, these are some of the nicest plants.
We're gonna be hoisting the flag of civil disobedience, cops be damned.
A mother of a 3-year-old child reaches out to Nate for help.
The idea that I would back down when children's lives are at stake? I can't do that.
Police search for illegal grows.
Here you have one on your left.
Right about your two to three, Ross.
I think a lot of people have underestimated what we're dealing with.
This is big money to them.
And a fallen dispensary owner, desperate to stay out of jail and keep his business thriving heads to the emerald triangle.
Whoever's left standing after this cannabis war stands to make a lot of money.
Deep in the heart of the northern California mountains, marijuana growing season is underway.
You're growing in your front yard.
Well, yeah.
This is the emerald triangle.
Ground zero for a multi-billion-dollar marijuana industry.
Originally comprised of three counties covering 10,000 square miles, it's now growing out of control.
I mean, look at the size of that.
It's a decades old battle between cops It is a problem at epidemic proportions.
Dealers - It's just a business that can't fail.
And growers.
There's nothing more American than a man producing a product that people want.
They stand to make millions or be locked up for years.
Arguably, I just committed a felony.
I've got somebody running.
This is weed country.
Yeah, I'm breaking the law on TV.
So what? Synch & corrections by Vegemite Damn it.
He doesn't know what he's dealing with.
It is the beginning of the marijuana eradication season.
Hey, sheriff.
Wondered if I could go over a couple things with you if you got time.
Sure.
This time of year, sheriff John Lopey and sergeant Mike Gilley dedicate themselves full time to finding and destroying illegal pot growers.
We believe there's a site up in here somewhere.
We had some informant information about gardens being in there.
Informants alerted Gilleyto a possible grow site high up in the mountains.
Sure is some dangerous terrain there.
Their next move Probably got armed growers.
Yeah, that is a big concern.
go there and take it down.
This is very dangerous, very complex work.
You know, you've got to find these cultivation sites, and with over 6,000 square miles of Siskiyou county, that's a challenge.
Okay, let's see what we can find.
We're up here in Redding, 200-some miles from Vallejo.
Facing an eight-year prison sentence, Matt Shotwell has come north looking to get back into the weed business without going back to jail.
I have an agenda for this trip up north.
I need to get an expert, I need to get farmers, and I need to get some pounds.
I need to bring all of that back to Vallejo, otherwise, I'll lose my house.
I'll lose my reputation.
I'm gonna lose my entire life.
And if the cops catch wind of what I'm doing, they could put me in jail, and that's a chance that I'll have to take.
Greenwell back in its heyday, it was cracking.
We're the first dispensary in downtown Vallejo.
We skyrocketed in less than two years to becoming the biggest, most popular dispensary in the entire county.
Then they decided to pull the rug out from underneath me.
Shotwell's lawyer has arranged a meeting with B.
E.
Smith, an icon in the cannabis community.
This guy's a legend up here.
He's also done federal time.
Famous for making potent marijuana for over three decades, B.
E.
Smith is an example of what can happen when a pot grower challenges the law.
He grew weed in his front yard as allowed by California law, but the feds made an example of him.
32 federal deputies hauled him off to prison, where he served two years for cultivation.
When I get out, I'm gonna smoke a big joint.
The reclusive grower agreed to meet in a public setting.
You're a little paranoid when you're in this business, and I have absolutely no idea what B.
E.
Smith is gonna say to me.
- How you doing, sir? - Good.
How are you? I'm all right.
My name is Matt Shotwell.
Thanks for coming.
My friend and attorney, Tom Ballanco.
I'm really glad I got to meet you guys.
Well, you're in good hands.
And one thing you'll find when you talk to B.
E.
is that B.
E.
is a remarkable person.
He remains the only person I've ever met who's read the California penal code cover to cover and the vehicle code and knows how those procedures work intimately.
All right.
I got busted February 21st, 9:30 A.
M.
, and I'm on a one-man mission to clear my name, to provide for myself, you know? I can't go back to the merchant marines, so I need a cannabis expert that can help me with my legal case.
So that's why I came up here to find you.
It's all up to you.
You're the defendant, but you need to go on the offense.
I'm still learning the lay of the land.
I feel like a duck out of water.
The government is fiction.
You can control the government.
But you can only do it through wrong.
Bill of rights, declaration of independence, all the way back to the magna carta, back to 1215.
You know, I hear the words he's saying, but I don't really understand what we were talking about.
The only people who can make us free are ourselves.
Well, I'm ready.
I'm definitely ready to stand up for my rights.
We're gonna boogie.
I'll buy your coffee.
At a certain point in the conversation, he didn't really want to have a conversation anymore, which I thought was strange.
I can't stay in a place with a lot of people.
I've got PTSD from the Vietnam war.
Okay.
I got to get back home.
Okay.
You can't go to law school to learn this.
It's a good place to start when you come up my house.
He asks me to his house.
I was kind of nervous about that.
His farm is in the middle of nowhere.
I'm by myself.
So now I'm wondering if something bad happens, what can I do to protect myself? You should come up and visit with me, and we'll talk about your case more.
You can see my farm.
All righty.
Well, I'll follow you up all right.
- Take care.
Good luck.
- Thank you, sir.
The script has been flipped on me, and now I got to come up into their dispensary, the emerald triangle.
I always had the power, it seemed, at greenwell, behind the desk.
I knew these guys were coming to me.
I knew they wanted to sell me their product, and I was relatively safe behind my nice desk in my office.
I am in trouble.
And I hope that I'm not making a big mistake.
We're starting to get into an area where there's a lot of medical marijuana.
Sergeant Gilley and detective Jones are heading to investigate a suspected illegal marijuana farm.
From here on down, it's gonna get pretty heavy.
Though the area is thick with legitimate medical cannabis farms, Gilley knows that illegal pot-growing operations often hide in plain sight amongst the legal.
Always done well up here.
Yeah, look around.
Grower Nate Morris returns to his farm for the first time after meeting Catherine Jacobson and her son, Ben.
What a cute kid.
Thanks.
Ben suffers from 10 to 12 epileptic seizures a day, any one of which could take his life.
When all other medical treatments failed, his mother tried non-psychoactive cannabis.
It worked.
My major hurdle right now is the drug.
I don't know how to make it.
That I could definitely help with.
Nate is developing plants that provide him with an oil-based extract he could use to help Ben get over his seizures.
Awesome.
When medical science wants to analyze the healing properties of a plant, step one is to chemically isolate one specific chemical and then test that chemical.
To me, that's just a fundamentally flawed approach.
If you're not testing that plant, you are falling to properly investigate that organism.
You need to be a farmer.
But according to federal law, farming marijuana is illegal.
Everybody who grows medical cannabis is in legal jeopardy, and punishments for providing a controlled substance to a minor are extreme.
I am terrified of going to jail over this, but at the same time, there's children's lives at stake.
You know, how do you not? We're gonna come in from above.
We'll have the sun at our back.
They'll have the sun in their eyes.
Lieutenant Matt Thomson and detective Don Adams are leading their team into the suspicious site that was spotted from the air.
Here you have one on your left.
Right about at your two to three, Ross.
My name's Donald Adams.
I'm a detective with the Jackson county sheriff's office.
I've been with the sheriff's office for almost 12 years.
Adams must lead his team carefully.
Growers routinely leave armed booby traps.
We did find where they had tied rattlesnakes to trees, and they cut the rattles off so that, obviously, you can't hear them.
You know, there's no warning sign.
For Thomson, walking into a grow site is like stepping into a minefield.
There's a lot of dangers involved with these investigations.
They know the lay of the land.
You know, they're armed generally with long rifles of some sort.
They're gonna hold their ground and fight.
All right, dude, listen.
don't say anything.
Be cool.
My heart just stopped.
No matter what that guy says, don't do anything dumb.
Jackson county marijuana eradication team members Don Adams and Matt Thomson have entered an illegal grow site.
You never know what's gonna happen.
We don't know.
They control it.
They dictate what we're gonna have to do.
You hope that they're just gonna run or throw their hands up and lay down, you know? But you don't know.
All around there is evidence of an illegal grow in the making, but no plants and no suspects.
The growers brazenly camp out in areas frequented by hunters and hikers.
They say we're the enemy.
You know, we're the ones between them and a profit.
Unfortunately, they don't distinguish us from the general public when it comes to the woods.
These marijuana growers are out in public lands where people hike, they camp, and they hunt.
It's very dangerous to the public.
These plants are my babies.
Now they're growing and getting big, you know, so that you can grow lots of bud.
For Tawni and Mike Boutin, growing big outdoor plants means more pot and more profit.
It also makes them a target to the police and to rippers, people who steal a grower's crop.
You okay, bud? Lassik! What do you got? That guy's, like, driving way too slow, just being a little bit too concerned about what I'm about or what I have here.
A mysterious vehicle appears to be casing Boutin's farm.
He looks right at me.
He sees that I want to say, "hey, dude.
What's up?" And he's just gonna keep going.
I'm not going anywhere.
One of the most disturbing things to me is the car that drives by way too slow.
You're just sending a red flag to me that you're trying to check me out.
Boutin is concerned it could be a cop or worse, someone who could do harm to him or his family.
Yo! There are people who spend a little time in the spring and summer and identify and locate marijuana gardens, particularly ones that aren't well defended or well guarded, and then they come back in the fall, and they take the crop.
And you could be robbed at gunpoint.
And, so, I have to suspect everybody.
Hey! Hey! Really, dude? I don't know what your story is, man, but this is, like, bizarre.
The best I can do is put a presence out that deters people who are just opportunists.
Here he comes right now.
Dude, what is your story? What is your story? Starting to get that ugly [Bleep.]
rising up in me right now.
Country folk don't act like that.
Good men don't act like that.
That guy's pissing me off, whether he's a fed or not.
I don't care.
I don't care who he is.
Wow.
I'm in the [Bleep.]
mountains.
Look at that gorge.
Far from his home in Vallejo, Matt Shotwell follows notorious marijuana farmer B.
E.
Smith deep into the emerald triangle.
I'm surrounded on both sides Cliffs.
Shotwell needs B.
E.
'S advice on how to get his charges reduced.
But the reclusive grower could be setting Shotwell up for an ambush.
So, I'm driving up through the mountains, and no one knew where I was going.
I've heard these stories about the emerald triangle.
This isn't one of those places you just go for fun.
You can't just walk up to a bar, "hey, can I buy some pot?" Bang! You're probably dead.
[Bleep.]
He's speeding up.
Why is he speeding up like that? He's got no reason to trust me.
I could very easily be followed by a cop, I could be GPS tracked by the police, or he could think that I'm an undercover, myself.
When you're in an illegal business, you're paranoid.
Really wish I'd brought a gun with me is what I really wish I did.
Really wish I'd brought a gun with me is what I really wish I did.
Matt Shotwell has been led deep into the forests of the emerald triangle by cannabis farmer B.
E.
Smith.
This must be it.
Holy Oh, my God.
He's got plants growing right in the middle of his yard.
Holy [Bleep.]
! You're growing in your front yard.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
That's the purpose.
Get the best of everything.
That is unbelievable.
Can we check out some of your plants? Oh, make yourself at home, buddy.
Look at these things.
I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but they're all so perfect.
Every one of them is green.
There's not one yellow leaf on any one of them.
This guy knows what the hell he's doing.
Hey, what's up, man? - Matt.
Aaron.
- Good to meet you.
Working the farm with B.
E.
is his grandson, Aaron, a third-generation pot farmer learning the trade.
My great uncle, my father, my brother All the men in our family have grown weed or are growing weed.
Damn, that smells so good.
That's the chronic, baby.
I love it.
You need to make a cologne like this.
Sergeant Mike Gilleyand his partner, Jason Jones, smell marijuana coming from the woods nearby.
Oh, yeah.
There it is.
Yeah.
We base a lot of our missions on picking up odors.
The later in the season it gets, the more prolific the odors are because the plants start to manufacture resin.
We find gardens that way quite frequently.
There it is.
Oh, yeah.
You got it.
See, you got all this down here in this here.
I definitely don't smell it over here.
This is the area where the snitch said to look.
Good intel.
So, what are you gonna do with all your cannabis when you harvest? It'll go to my patients that I have that I'm growing for.
And, so Dude, I would love to have a garden like this.
How long have you been growing on this plot right here? I started growing in 1979.
Wow.
You've been growing longer than I've been walking on the planet.
What are the rules up here in this area? I mean, as far as county limits to grow.
Well, state law doesn't have a limit.
They only caught me with 800 plants.
I think that they're gonna try to scare me.
Of course they will.
All I can tell you is if you want justice, go to a whorehouse.
And if you want to get [Bleep.]
go to a courthouse.
Yeah.
I've done time because I'm out in front, and they got to take someone down.
I'm experienced at walking point.
I did it in Vietnam.
You know, ain't no big deal to walk point in America, or I thought.
One thing about liberties are you have to fight for them, and what I'm gonna do is show you how to do it.
I will not be satisfied until I'm whacking plants down.
The smallest clue could lead to a large bust.
See those valves in a row? Yeah.
That's a hell of a lot of water coming out here.
That line goes to something down there.
Water lines disappearing into the woods are a dead giveaway.
Gilleyand his partner are footsteps away from taking down the grow.
Sure picked a hot day to do this, didn't we? I want you to read the definition of marijuana.
Marijuana means, "all parts of the plant cannabis sativa I.
, whether growing or not.
" Okay, that's enough.
So, if you're growing indica, that would be one of the defenses I would use in your case.
Cannabis typically comes in two forms, indica and sativa.
Both have narcotic properties, but according to the laws as they are written, only one, sativa, qualifies as marijuana.
- I was growing indica.
- Okay.
You wasn't growing marijuana, then, were you? Not according to that definition.
That is correct.
It's brilliant.
Brilliant.
You beat them by their own law.
I would use it as a defense.
Goes all the way to drainage.
It's a car battery.
There's a need to be filled, and there's money on the table.
If I can be the person to bring that together Maybe we'll have a chat about working out something mutually beneficial.
Sergeant Mike Gilleyand deputy Jason Jones sneak up on an illegal grow.
Booby traps line the site, evidence that the growers are serious about protecting their crop and violent retaliation is a sure bet.
But as they enter the camp Whoever set the traps heard them coming and fled.
Just walked into is a marijuana grow.
We've got a drying station, a stove, a lot of chemical product for fertilizer, a nice water pump to pull in from the creek below.
You can see behind us we've got some marijuana plants.
And downhill, we got some more nurseries, some more starting holes here.
These plants here are actually budding.
You can see, like, this plant here has got some really good bud on it.
They were getting pretty close to where they were gonna pull them.
Destroying the garden sends a strong message to the growers when they return to their camp.
I think we had somewhere around 100 plants.
With pressure from officers like Gilley and Jones, another grow site has been taken down, but there's more work to be done.
We have a lot of other bigger targets to deal with right now.
It's kind of snowballing in this county.
You know, we'll get this one wrapped up, move on to the next one.
There's so many things that people assume in their mind when you talk about working on a marijuana farm.
People think that it's a way to get rich, that it's a work-free drug place.
There's no such thing as a lazy hippie growing medical-grade cannabis.
Growing cannabis in the emerald triangle is hard enough.
Finding trustworthy help to run a marijuana farm can be just as challenging.
The last guy I had up here got himself arrested.
The first chance he had to go to town, whether it's his fault or not, he ended up getting himself caught up in some police action and now he's on probation.
It put Tawni way, way, way behind at a very, very important time of the year.
What are you guys doing? Just waiting to see you.
Boutin has hired Taylor.
Good to see you.
He's the 18-year-old son of Mike's friend, Bobby.
Nice to meet you.
He's a kid who's never had a job.
He doesn't really know anything about marijuana production.
So I must impart as much as I can to him of everything that I've learned.
Anything that I know this summer, I'm gonna teach him.
I was so happy that you guys Like, number one, you, Taylor, like, wanted to actually come and do the job, and, number two, Bobby, that you, like, trusted us enough that you felt like, you know, he would be safe here and that it would be a good thing.
Taylor's dad, Bobby, uses cannabis to ease his pain.
I had this major accident probably about 22 years back and messed myself up quite well.
I met Mike and Tawni through compassionate cannabis community, and we've grown to be basically family.
Wouldn't be here if I didn't trust you, but my two rule breakers are this No lying, no stealing.
Taylor's known the Boutins for a couple of years now.
I take this as a great responsibility.
You know, I'll treat him as if he's my own son.
Taylor is 18, and it was his decision.
- Peace and wellness.
- I love you, dad.
I am concerned that the cops may come in, and any parent would be.
- Thank you, guys.
- Drive safe, dad.
Everybody in the family is proud of him and behind him 100%.
What's there, like 50 or 60 plants out here? Yeah, about 60 now.
That's what it looked like.
So, is there a reason why you don't do, like, 500 plants out here? I'm not greedy, and I don't need that money.
Oh, okay.
B.
E.
Smith's farm is pretty cool.
There's money to be made here.
- So, B.
E.
- Yes, sir? After all the patients get the medicine that they need, you gonna have a surplus? I will probably have a surplus.
I know some clubs in Vallejo that desperately need some medicine.
So, what do you think about after you have your surplus maybe we'll have a chat about maybe working out something mutually beneficial.
An early outdoor harvest is highly valuable, and Matt Shotwell sees an opportunity to cash in.
If you wait to give the surplus on the end, by then, you'll have so much more competition when crop-tober comes, because once October comes, then everybody else harvests theirs, they won't need it.
They'll be like, "we're good.
" And then you'll get $1,000 a pound for it.
- Yeah.
I know.
- One strategy that I would have for you is that I could get it moved to you to some clubs that need it now.
So, you just think about that, 'cause around September time, you're gonna It's okay, buddy.
It's okay.
Hey, buddy.
How you doing? I'm doing really well.
It's good to see you.
Grower Nate Morris lives nearby I'm doing well.
How have you been? and can't resist the chance to look in on B.
E.
's early harvest.
Say hi to Nate.
B.
E.
, wow.
He's on a very short list of people that I would call one of my heroes.
- Nate? - Matt.
Good to meet you, Matt.
B.
E.
is a master at growing various strands designed to produce specific physical results.
For Nate, this is an opportunity to compare B.
E.
's plants with his own.
I'm certainly not gonna pass up an opportunity to come visit and check out his genetics.
This is my tragic.
This is my seed I started about seven years ago.
It's an arcata trainwreck bred with a magic male.
These strands are some of the best weed on the planet, and there's certain strands that he's bred in with other strands.
It's kind of a living science experiment.
The prices were going ridiculous a few years ago.
They're starting to come back up, but they're, like Super low like last year.
Yeah, it was it was getting nuts there for a while.
When I got in the business back in 1979, it was $1,100 a pound.
And then when it went up, the highest it's ever went up was $4,800 a pound.
$4,800.
Now it's back down to $1,000, you know, $1,500 a pound.
Totally.
I'd be okay with $1,000 or $1,500 a pound if it that was getting passed on to the consumer.
Nate, that's exactly how I feel, buddy.
We got to band together or the middleman's gonna take the business away from us.
Absolutely.
And they don't produce nothing.
No.
It's a parasite on the system.
Exactly.
Just like Wall Street.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly the same deal.
Brokers, middlemans, providers, caregivers The bud's got to get from a farm to somebody's pipe one way or another.
Patients need medicine.
I depend on making a living out of that business.
Some people agree with that.
Some people don't.
I don't really give a [Bleep.]
That's what I do, and that's what I'm gonna keep on doing.
But, hey, they can come out and buy private property and get blisters on their hands like we do.
Yeah.
Hey, the more the merrier.
Hey, man.
You need help? No, not really, but you know what? Come here, though.
What's up? Boutin is worried about more unwanted visitors.
I want to start bringing you up to speed on something.
He is constantly on the lookout for thieves and cops.
I heard a little bit of unusual activity, so I just kind of came to survey what I could survey from this spot.
I'm worried about somebody being able to drive in and just, boom, six guys jump out.
If that happens, it's not your job to defend weed.
It's your job to, like, run like hell that direction.
I'm not trying to be paranoid.
It's just that catching us by surprise could be the death of the farm, could be the death of somebody that I love.
It could be the death of me.
All right, so, I want to go on a little instructional trip, start showing you some of the things you need to know about the road.
Oh, cool.
Thanks, Mike.
Taylor is learning all about farm life, but now Boutin's about to give him tips on one of the more risky sides of the weed trade smuggling.
I have to teach him how to stay out of jail.
The last kid didn't get that lesson.
With a one-pound bag of marijuana carefully hidden, Boutin begins the run.
Taylor takes in every word and videotapes the run to review later.
There's a million things.
I don't expect you to remember them all today, but if you're going to have a future with grace farm and you're going to become a transporter, I want to be confident that you know how to think.
I feel a great weight of responsibility to make sure that Taylor leaves here better than he showed up.
Boutin turns on the radar detector.
If I come out here, boom, I can swing right in now and dime in that corner right off against that yellow line, accelerate off of it.
Bing, off the inside of this one.
That's how you make time.
Ka alert.
"Ka" refers to the band frequency of police radar guns.
Uh-oh.
Damn it.
Ka alert.
Uh-oh.
Mike Boutin is training his new farmhand by taking him on a smuggling run when something goes horribly wrong.
All right, dude.
Listen.
You know what? Don't say anything.
Be cool.
Put your hands where everybody can see them and keep that camera rolling no matter what that guy says.
He doesn't know who he's dealing with.
Morning.
Hey, how are you? - You were doing 83.
I was in a little bit of a hurry, 'cause I'm supposed to be at 9:00 to meet my brother Ray with ypd.
Oh, Ray Boutin.
Yeah, Ray's my little younger brother.
Yeah, I do apologize for that, too.
I generally wouldn't have been going up right through there like that.
I mean, this is, like, right where you guys live.
Everybody knows that.
But 83 was, you know, certainly out of line, and I admit that.
Okay.
Say hi to Ray for me.
I will, and, listen, I do apologize.
Appreciate it.
- Take care.
Have a good one.
- Thank you.
You got the whole thing? Awesome, dude.
My heart just stopped, and just to think of what could have happened.
For Mike Boutin, a simple traffic stop I just got pulled over with some weed.
could mean four years in prison.
If you can haul one, you can haul 100.
Tell me about your case.
What are you charged with? Growers B.
E.
and Nate grill dispensery owner Matt Shotwell.
Felony cultivation, sales, director-operator of an illegal business.
Shotwell is well out of his element and is already at risk if he's caught trying to get back into the weed business.
How many plants did you have? You kind of dodged a bullet.
If you had over 1,000, that would have been a 40-year mandatory minimum.
I only had 87 and the feds took me in.
- No kidding.
- Yeah.
So, where you going from here? Well, my plan now is to acquire some cannabis.
You know, and connect growers to patients, growers to new co-op.
So There's a need to be filled and there's money on the table, and if I can be the person to bring that together, it's gonna be beautiful.
These clubs in Vallejo that are getting You know, they're opening and closing, reopening in different places, and it's a cat-and-mouse game with the police and us.
Yeah.
That's a sketchy place to bring weed to.
I wouldn't be caught dead in a place like that.
I mean, if they're always going to jail and then I roll up with a bag of weed, I would expect to go to jail.
Yeah, you'd probably go to jail.
I don't want to speak for B.
E.
, but, personally, I like the idea of growers and patients in need having a direct connection, cutting out as many middlemen as possible.
Dispensaries, at this moment in history, scare the hell out of me.
So, now it's farmer to patient.
That's what you guys are feeling.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
There's a gentleman named Mike Boutin who you might want to talk to him.
He's a farmer.
He has his own collective.
I believe he also does work with other collectives.
Might be our hemp runner.
You just got to be really careful.
Really careful and really smart.
People that are bold and take big risks and open up shops with 800 plants, props to them.
But the charges that he's up against are serious charges.
I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but a sinking ship is not something that you want to jump aboard.
I'm kind of running out of options here.
Pretty much everything in my life that's important to me is on the line.
My freedom's at stake.
I'm trying to not go to jail, 'cause harvest is coming.
So I guess I only have a really short period, and, so, I need to capitalize on that.
I'm feeling kind of like I'm running out of options and trapped in a sense.
If I don't start fixing the holes in this boat fast, I'm gonna sink.
Having narrowly escaped arrest, Boutin continues his smuggling run with Taylor while carrying a one-pound bag of marijuana.
I'll be right back.
Don't do anything dumb.
In the middle of a marijuana smuggling run, Boutin unexpectedly stops at the Yreka police station.
Taylor, his new farmhand, anxiously awaits outside with a pound of weed and a four-year prison sentence sitting in the back seat.
What's all that about? Uh I had to have a little talk with my brother.
My brother's a cop, and for the first time ever, I dropped my brother's name with the chp, and I wanted him to know I was sorry for that, and that's something that you say in person.
He told me that there's a bull's-eye on your back.
He's basically telling me to watch out for myself.
Sorry to surprise you with that, but, listen, you know what? He's a good man.
He's a good cop.
He's not about trying to rid America of weed.
He's about trying to rid his town of bad men.
After clearing things up with his brother, Boutin heads out to make his delivery.
You would think that I'm a marijuana guy, so I must be this, I must be that.
You'd be wrong.
I'm an Evangelical Christian man who believes of the God of the Bible.
I believe in law and order.
I live in full civil disobedience because I think that the prohibition against marijuana is just so inhumane and barbaric when you walk it out to its logical conclusion.
You want to have a few beers? That used to get you in jail.
We recognize that was stupidity.
We ought to be able to figure out it's the same.
Clear? Yeah, we're good back here.
Lieutenant Matt Thompson continues his relentless search to take down growers in the emerald triangle.
Well, right now, we're following up leads.
We actually got a vehicle identified.
We got some suspects identified.
We're thinking now we probably got more than just one grow.
Okay.
Here we go.
He missed a big capture during a raid in the woods.
Now he takes to the air, determined to find the next violator and bring them down.
What's up, buddy? Why? What happened? What do you mean they took everything? Tell me you're [Bleep.]
me.
It's all gone? Oh [Bleep.]
.
I just got a call that my garden has been cut down.
What the am I gonna do now? Synch & corrections by Vegemite