Earlier this week, Congressmen Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), Sam Farr (D-Carmel), and Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) announced that the United States Sentencing Commission (Commission) took action against illegal marijuana cultivation on public and private lands by increasing penalties for high-level offenders. In California’s rural counties, illegal marijuana proliferation is rampant, and has been associated with major environmental impacts, including water pollution, illegal water diversion, illegal use of fertilizers, and un-regulated logging.
Responding to these issues, RCRC joined Congressional members and California’s U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein urging the Commission to adopt increased sentencing penalty standards, a move which RCRC believes would help curb illegal marijuana grows, and help prevent the long-term detrimental environmental and health impacts they pose to our local communities. The new sentencing standards will be sent to Congress by May 1, 2014. If Congress does not take action against the new sentencing standards, they will officially go into effect on November 1, 2014.
RCRC’s comment letter to the Commission can be accessed here.
For additional information, please contact RCRC Senior Legislative Advocate Paul A. Smith at (916) 447-4806 orpsmith@rcrcnet.org.