Eight years after the legalization of cannabis, illegal farms overwhelm the desert. The underground economy still weighs more heavily than the legal market, handicapped by an avalanche of taxes.
In January, six bodies, four of them burned, were found riddled with bullets after a cartel-style massacre in San Bernardino County. The police also found all kinds of harmful pesticides, such as an insecticide so powerful that a teaspoon of its powder can kill a bear. “If I was a marijuana smoker, I wouldn’t want to smoke this,” says one farmer.