The Narc drones are coming!

The Nevada County’s Cannabis Alliance has announced that the next course of action is to use drones to locate illegal cannabis farms.

Illegal operations in California overshadow legal operators. For this reason, before this decision was taken, some tough measures were taken, but to no avail.

The prospect of that would mean that Nevada County will be more or less a dystopian region with drones flying across the skies for a few weeks or even months. All of this to pinpoint a number of illegal operations within the county.

Illegal cannabis operations in California

The Nevada County Cannabis Alliance is not alone in the fight against illegal cannabis operations. The entire cannabis industry in California is negatively impacted by the black market industry. This is important as these illegal deals create an oversupply of products in the market.

In most cases, when illegal operators want to get rid of their crops as soon as possible, they tend to lower the regulated prices of the products. In this way, they attract most of the customers from the licensed breeders in the county. These illegal cannabis operators are getting bolder, for example they have settled in the Mojave Desert. There are thousands of illegal cannabis plants here in this arid country.

A source once stated that agents did everything they could to fend off these illegal California breeders, but they keep returning to the area they were sent from days or months after the raid.

Decision of the Nevada County Alliance

The groups of cannabis growers belonging to the Nevada County Alliance have voiced their grievances and decided to adopt the use of drones to fish out the unlicensed growers.

Nevada County officials believe a third of cannabis-related complaints have been related to farms within fences, locked gates, and other visual barriers. Nevada County’s Construction Director Craig Griesbach announced that two of the reported locations have been designated as wildfire origins.

In 2020, one of these forest fires started during the Jones Fire. The union was forced to divert airstrike resources away from the Jones Fire to prevent the wildfire from spreading excessively. This decision saved several lives and property.

Drone technology in cannabis farms

According to Craig, the union believes that the use of drone technology can be implemented to ensure all farms adhere to established regulations for cannabis sites.

For example, the presence and use of generators are against cannabis laws. These prime movers must not be on site as they are the main cause of fire incidents. Drones can mitigate these types of accidents.

Drones require specialist knowledge and technical know-how to operate. In order for a pilot program to start, tools and staff training must be carried out.

The program manager for the country codes and compliance departments announced that some tools for this program can be procured with a budget of $ 10,000. Mr Merriman also announced that the funds to be used for staff training will come from the general allocation.

The Nevada County cannabis alliance has announced that a pilot program will be launched next spring. The county will use drones to find out the locations of illegal cannabis cultivation. The risk of avoidable forest fires is one of the justifications to make sure the program starts by March 2022.

Details on the pilot program

Steps are being taken to purchase all required equipment before the program begins in March. The pilot program is scheduled to last five months, from March to August 2022.

By November 2022, the Board of Examiners should determine whether or not the program has served its purpose. The review will be completed by February 2023, after which time any information received, along with a comprehensive report, will be shared with the program regulators and other industry stakeholders.

The selected employees will also be trained from now until March. Merriman said the personnel who will be allowed to handle the drones will be from the field staff of the cannabis compliance department.

The training is estimated at 10 to 15 hours. At the end of the training there is a compulsory license test for the trainees to hold a drone pilot license. Tests are conducted annually by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ensure pilots are still fit enough to pilot these drones.

When the pilot program begins, any accident or attempt to shoot down the drone by outside forces must be reported to the cannabis program manager. The manager must then file an incident report with the Nevada County Risk Manager’s office indicating whether it was a disruptive incident or sabotage. The law also requires the FAA to receive a detailed report of the event within 10 days.

California lawmakers support the use of drones

Recently, the federal government made efforts to track down illegal cannabis sites within California’s borders. During this time, the California Home Resources Committee supported the idea that drones could be used for this measure.

For this measure to be more effective, domestic production of drones needs to be improved and issues related to cybersecurity need to be resolved so that these drones are trusted.

Another issue will be how to maintain the privacy of Nevada County’s residents. A law professor at the University of Pacific said officials had the support of the fourth projections of changes to conduct drone operations.

Efforts are being made to increase the enforcement of illegal cannabis cultivation. These locations need to be identified and drones are armed to get the much-needed information.

Bottom line

Once these illegal businesses are exposed and consequently destroyed, legal operators will face less competition and the overabundance of products will be a thing of the past.

For the California cannabis industry to thrive, sufficient attention must be paid to exposing illegal cannabis growing activities. Further possibilities for the procurement of additional license types can then be created.

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