(NewsNation) — Chinese and Mexican transnational criminal organizations are trafficking marijuana to states where recreational use is still illegal, keeping the black market alive and booming.
This isn’t just about small grow operations anymore.
According to the DEA’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment, over the last 10 years, Chinese and Mexican transnational criminal organizations have turned the legalization movement into a multi-billion-dollar black market, exploiting loose state laws to set up illegal grows and traffic high-potency marijuana across the country.
Criminal groups are buying up land — indoor and outdoor — to cultivate marijuana far beyond legal limits in Oklahoma and California, among others.
According to a former California Wildlife Department lieutenant, many of these operations rely on trafficked, undocumented immigrants to work the grows, often under threat.
“[They are] bringing in Mexican nationals, bringing in Chinese immigrants as well, and basically bringing them in as the labor force within these bureau sites, promising them payment,” retired Lt. John Nores, formerly of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told NewsNation.
“Not paying these guys, kind of extorting and keeping them around, really not really against their will,” Nores added.
In 2023, NewsNation embedded with Riverside County Sheriff’s Marijuana Eradication Team, targeting Chinese illegal grow sites in the deserts, where neighbors were too frightened to leave their property and deputies were outnumbered by organized criminals.
The DEA says these illegal growers often operate in states where marijuana is legal but skip licensing or use falsified documents. If they are caught, little to no prison time is common, allowing them to pack up and move.
In 2024, Oklahoma alone accounted for two-thirds of DEA’s total marijuana seizures. But that doesn’t mean all the drugs originated there; many were caught in transit, being moved from grow states to black market destinations.
