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.”

“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.

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