New Mexico
The New Mexico cannabis cowboys: Modern day desperados
Bliss Farm is not the only rogue Torrance County cannabis farm. Since 2021, central New Mexico’s Estancia Valley has been overrun with at least seven multi-million dollar marijuana plantations with international connections. Each of the cannabis operations involves locally owned agricultural farmland leased to individuals of Chinese descent.
“These are large-scale operations that are packaging their marijuana and shipping them all across our country. They’re coming from the People’s Republic of China. They’re setting up their operations here,” said Will Glaspy who heads up a federal drug program that provides resources to local law enforcement agencies. “The legalization of marijuana has made it more difficult for our law enforcement partners to conduct their investigations and it’s provided some cover for the Mexican drug cartels and Chinese organized crime to be able to carry out their illegal activities, circumventing state law in the process,” Glaspy said.
Administrators with the state’s Cannabis Control Division say they don’t know the extent of black market marijuana in New Mexico. But industry experts who have studied the weed market put the price tag on bootleg cannabis here at a whopping half billion dollars. Ultra Health CEO Duke Rodriguez calls New Mexico’s marijuana marketplace, “the wild, wild west.” Buy unregulated, untaxed, untested cannabis and you risk unknown potency, banned pesticides, or dangerous mold.
“At least 50% of the cannabis commerce occurring in New Mexico is occurring in the illicit market,” Duke Rodriguez said. “This is a complete threat to everybody who’s invested in this industry on a legitimate legal basis. This is a crime. Why isn’t this crime being addressed,” Rodriguez said.
“When the original act was passed, the promise was that this was going to eliminate the black market and the criminal element in New Mexico. To the contrary we become ground (zero) for the illegal market in New Mexico,” State Senator Joseph Cervantes said.
To understand why so many rogue cannabis organizations proliferate, you have to look at the state’s licensing process. For example, after the Santa Fe-based pot shop, Unlimited Extract got a state cannabis license, its operation was hardly by the book. Unlimited Extract openly touted banned products on its website and directed a parade of customers to a clandestine marijuana store in the garage of a Santa Fe residence. By the time state inspectors got wind of the illicit operation, they said Unlimited Extract was “out of compliance with everything.”
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(Unlimited Extract banned products listed on its website) -
(Unlimited Extract State Licenses | KRQE)
“We did have evidence that (Unlimited Extract was) operating out of a residential garage that does not have a license,” Cannabis Control Director Stevens said. “That would be an unlicensed premise, which would be criminal in nature. Anyone conducting commercial activities without a license would be (unlawful),” Stevens said. State cannabis regulators have filed a Notice of Contemplated Action relating to the Unlimited Extract operation and disciplinary action is pending.
If Unlimited Extract wasn’t compliant with state cannabis regulations then how did the Santa Fe pot shop get a state-issued cannabis license? The answer relates to compliance inspections of a licensee’s premises by state inspectors. According to CCD Director Stevens, “In my opinion, they’re one of the most important, if not the most important part of the process is inspecting these facilities to ensure that these businesses are compliant (with regulations).” However, in the case of Unlimited Extract, the business wasn’t inspected until months after its cannabis license had been issued.
New Mexico takes a unique position on cannabis licensure. Here, marijuana licenses are issued on the honor system where state credentials are issued to practically anyone who applies. “We issue these licenses to good faith actors, and we assume people follow the law until we go into these businesses and find elsewhere,” Todd Stevens said. Out of 3,000 licensed cannabis facilities across New Mexico, Stevens admits, the Cannabis Control Division has only inspected about half of them. “With the limited resources that we have, sending officers to a place where cannabis activity is not licensed we don’t quite have that ability yet with the resources that we have. We focus on our licensed cannabis activities that are fully licensed,” Stevens said in July.
For example:
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CMF Production (Clovis) received its General Cannabis Production Facility license in 2022. One year later Cannabis Control Agents paid a visit to the CMF facility. Inspectors noted extensive Cannabis violations including illegal sourcing and distribution of cannabis products, improper labeling and tracking of products, unlicensed manufacturing activity and improper transportation of cannabis. CMF’s cannabis license was later revoked.
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Last year the state issued Grass On Wheels (Albuquerque) a retail cannabis license. Apparently, the Cannabis Control Division didn’t read the Grass On Wheel license application. Eight months after issuing Grass on Wheel its cannabis license, state inspectors discovered the business was committing a host of violations including selling cannabis out of a van in a residential neighborhood.
It’s the same story all over New Mexico: Hundreds of uninspected licensed facilities with multiple unaddressed violations of the Cannabis Regulation Act. New Mexico may be the only state in the country that issues recreational cannabis licenses without first conducting a facility compliance inspection. With only nine field inspectors, Todd Stevens said his division lacks the resources to perform timely inspections, and, he admits, that’s a problem. “We don’t know that any licensed facility is going to be compliant without an inspection,” Stevens said.
“This is a narcotic. Right now we need to make sure that we have control over it,” State Senator Mark Moores said. “We have 30% of it coming from out of state. We have the (Cannabis Control) Division issuing licenses to people before they’re being inspected. This is a major concern. If we’re going to do this as an industry in New Mexico, we’ve got to get it right,” Senator Moores said.
“The decision to legalize marijuana was made. And while I didn’t support it at the time, it’s a decision and we’re going to work with it. I’m determined to make it work better. But right now we’ve really got chaos,” State Senator Joseph Cervantes said.
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Information and photos provided by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Eli Rodarte caught a 24-inch rainbow trout using worms in the bait…
New Mexico
Running hot and cold: New Mexico runners earn 17 All American awards at national XC championships
YOUTH SPORTS
Gianna Chavez earns fourth in boys 8-and-under race
New Mexico had 17 athletes earn All American awards at the 2025 National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championship meet held Saturday at snowy Blue River Cross Country Course in Shelbyville, Indiana.
Gianni Chavez, of Albuquerque Athletics Track, earned his fourth USA Track & Field All American award with a fourth place finish in the 8-and-under boys 2K race. Chavez, an Osuna Elementary third-grader, ran his 2K race in a personal best time of 7 minutes, 44.9 seconds.
The top 25 individual finishers and top three teams earn USATF All American awards.
The Cougar Track Club 8U girls team, based out of Albuquerque, placed second and was led by Antonette Marquez, who finished 12th. Other CTC 8U girls team members include Kimberly Reed (31st), Viola Crabbe Maple (55th), Payton Pacheco (61st), Chloe Chino (85th), Emery Grieco (113th) and Zay’a Cheromiah (149th).
Others individual All American award winners include Ava Denton, of AAT, 16th in 13/14 girls 4K; Brynlee Reed, of CTC, 22nd in 15/16 girls 5K; Sihasin Fleg, of Running Medicine, 21st in 8U girls 2K; Eden Pino, of Running Medicine, 12th in 9/10 girls 3K; Nizhoni Fleg, of Running Medicine, 14th in 17/18 girls 5K; Brady Garcia, of Running Medicine, seventh in 17/18 boys 5K; Justice Jones, of Zia, 14th in 9/10 girls 3K; Emilo Otero Soltero, of Dukes Track Club, 12th in 9/10 boys 3K; Miles Gray, unattached, 21st in 9/10 boys 3K.
Also Saturday, at the Brooks Cross Country Nationals in San Diego, Eldorado’s Gianna Rahmer placed 17th in the girls championship 5K with a time of 18:00.7 and Moriarty’s Carmen Dorsey-Spitz placed 25th 18:09.4.
El Paso police seek suspect in East Side robbery, burglary
An unidentified man is suspected in an East Side robbery and a restaurant burglary on Oct. 20, 2025, in Crime Stoppers of El Paso’s Crime of the Week.
Provided by Crime Stoppers of El Paso
An Anthony, New Mexico man was sentenced to nearly two decades in federal prison for selling methamphetamine from a trailer on his parents’ property, authorities said.
A federal judge sentenced David Amaya, 43, to 19 years and seven months in prison on one count of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, New Mexico federal court records show. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release after he serves his prison term.
U.S. District Judge Margaret I. Strickland handed down the sentence on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the federal courthouse in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Williams prosecuted the case.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Ryan Ellison and FBI Albuquerque Field Office Special Agent in Charge Justin A. Garris announced Amaya’s sentencing in a joint news release.
Amaya pleaded guilty to the charge in September as part of a plea agreement that dismissed one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, court records show.
Anthony, New Mexico man sells meth on parents’ property
FBI agents began investigating Amaya after he sold methamphetamine to a “controlled buyer” in July and August 2024, the news release states. Controlled buys are when law enforcement uses an undercover agent or a witness to purchase drugs from a suspected drug dealer.
The agents obtained a search warrant on Aug. 22, 2024, for a “specific tow-behind type trailer that Amaya was known to be living in and conducting narcotics transfers out of,” a federal complaint affidavit states. The trailer was located on property owned by Amaya’s parents in Anthony, New Mexico, the news release states.
The trailer did not have a restroom, but agents found a small makeshift bathroom structure with a porta-potty inside next to the trailer. The agents then obtained a warrant to also search the small bathroom structure.
The agents found “a large quantity of white crystalline substance suspected to be methamphetamine” throughout the trailer and bathroom structure, the affidavit states. In the bathroom, agents found a clothing hamper with “a gallon zip lock bag full of suspected methamphetamine” hidden inside.
Agents found a black Ruger .357 caliber handgun containing five rounds of .357 caliber ammunition and a black Mossberg 500 E410 gauge shotgun on the bed inside the trailer, the affidavit states. The news release states agents found “hundreds of rounds of ammunition.”
They also found about 4.42 grams of methamphetamine on the bed and another 26 grams under the bed, the affidavit states. Agents found eight more grams of methamphetamine on a nightstand.
Amaya told agents during an interview that the methamphetamine was his, he had acquired it over a period of time, and did not realize how much it was, the affidavit states. He added he “needed the guns for protection, so people would know he has them, making him safer,” the affidavit states.
In total, the agents found 1,183 grams of methamphetamine.
Aaron Martinez covers the criminal justice system for the El Paso Times. He may be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com.
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