Cannabis boom and bust on Native American land

 

When you drive through here the air is fresh before the hustle and bustle its very mind-settling it puts your

soul at ease out of all the whole united states these non-natives came here they picked the Navajo nation to set up their shop you wake up the next morning boom there's hoop houses i’s not talking about one two hoops

houses i’s talking about 25 hoop houses that were put up overnight from a distance.

 

You don't know what it is you just see plants until you actually zoom in and you realize this is marijuana the suspects were found staying in a Farmington motel where they occupied 19 rooms police found around 2 000 pounds of marijuana plants and substances in multiple rooms last summer hundreds of Chinese workers flocked to Shiprock new Mexico for what they believed were well-paying jobs on legal hemp farms this time kovan 19.

 

We cannot open the restaurant we cannot open the driver agency most business are dead and the cannabis is only one but in less than six months police raided and shut down dozens of farms what they found there was high grade marijuana not hemp people had to pick up and leave as fast as possible the fact that there's still clothing hanging here and food in the kitchen.

 

I think really speaks to how quickly people felt they had to get out of here although medical marijuana is legal in new Mexico it remains illegal on tribal land there is some paperwork back here they're looking for records information and evidence controlled substances including marijuana the drug paraphernalia scales packaging material it just looks like someone turned and ran and just left everything behind based in California Irving introduces the Chinese immigrant community to opportunities in the cannabis industry i’s one of the victims too

 

We are the guy who's looking for opportunity this is like a chain action about people looking for people in New Mexico Irving’s go-to person was danae benali a former Navajo farm board official who claimed he had the authority to issue hemp permits.

but things quickly spun out of control you see just massive operations huge greenhouses filling up entire plots of land gates locked it was very evident something very strange was going on in this community 24-year-old Brandon Billy worked for Denay as a security guard.

 

 When I noticed started going to fishy was when I was not allowed on some of the fields people were stealing the hemp out of the farms they were getting high they were some of them said they were getting headaches and just by the look of it and the smell

it didn't add up danae Benally has been charged by the Navajo nation and there is an open federal investigation into his activities but he insists that what he did was for the good of the Navajo people we have somebody who decided to make up their own rules and circumvent established law on a Navajo nation nothing in this whole operation was legal there wasn't legal business licenses you know we're talking thousands of asian immigrant workers we don't know if their payroll was taxed we don't even know if they got paid this is just the cautionary tale to our leaders and our policymakers and our lawmakers across the united states

that if you don't carefully plan out your laws and regulations it can cause a big problem is this your fault or not danae's hemp empire left the Navajo community deeply divided I’ve been shot through this window

twice now this is damaged completely my headlights do not work anymore i didn't want this to happen i was just doing it just so i can work it also rattled the chinese community with 17 workers arrested and later released as the victims of human trafficking sometimes a feel discrimination but I cannot say too much about that they are good people they're not doing nothing wrong they need to take care of the family for b healing will not come easy i know the community members are still very upset because now we're battling

the cleanup you can see it from here you know it's an eyesore having worked for danae Brandon now

feels rejected by his own community because of all the stuff that's happened to me I  just don't feel welcome no more I’d rather live in my vehicle somewhere else where nobody knows me.