Bay Area pot raids net 10 arrests and 22 pounds of marijuana

[Yes4Prop215]

It is interesting how they didnt mention any use of 215 scripts? They were also stealing power which is the number 1 way to get raided..... ...either way, im surprised that such a measly amount of pot managed to make the news. safe bet that these growers were pumping out commercial beasters and wont be missed by anybody here...

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_17408395?source=most_viewed

Police arrested 10 people, seized $70,000 in harvested marijuana and shut down seven grow houses during raids Wednesday in San Francisco, San Mateo County and the East Bay.

The searches, which targeted an Asian drug-trafficking network, netted $100,000 in cash, 2,200 marijuana plants in various stages of growth, 22 pounds of pot and four guns, according to a statement from the San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force. Undercover agents had spent a year investigating the operation.

Of the 15 homes raided by agents from the county task force, state and federal drug agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seven were houses where pot was being grown. The remaining eight were residences of the alleged conspirators.

Police said there is no evidence the growing operations were connected with medical marijuana collectives. "All evidence suggests that this operation was strictly a for-profit endeavor," the statement said.

The people arrested -- Queenie Y.K. Yee, 38, Bill Dao Bian Qi, 33, Wilson S. Cheung, 50, all three of Millbrae; Winnie Jiang Phan, 47, Qian Wen Li, 47, Hu Weiren, 49, Jia Li Hu, 20, Weix Lian, 48, Wendy Lau, 49, all six of San Francisco; and Zei Wei Chen, 42, of Alameda -- are being held in lieu of $1 million bail each.

Nearly all face charges of marijuana cultivation, marijuana possession for sale, criminal conspiracy and theft of utilities. They are due in San Mateo County Superior Court on Thursday for
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arraignment, according to police.

 

[kyndone]

wow, i agree with the guy in the news page forum, that it is meth that is ruining our kids, (and adults, there are 40-50-60 year old men tweeked out of their skull, riding bmx bikes, dumpster diving and stealing everything that isnt bolted down, (and even then they sometimes have cordless sawsalls ) all over our little town) i wish they would stop arresting "pot smokers", and hit "tweek freaks" and their cookers. stealing power, lol, stupid., i feel bad for the ppl who own the house, sounds like they were the real victims,

 

[♥Mo♥]

Interesting comments on the linked page, especially the ones from one of the home owners that was renting their home out. Thanks for the post yes4prop215.

 

[PistilPete]

Wow, a whole 22 pounds. I'll bet the bay area is bone dry today and everybody is smoking roaches. Way to go San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force!

 

[Lazyman]

Gang-related growers, fuck em and everyone who pulls this shit. Thieves with guns, gives us all a bad name and hurts our cause, and depresses our market. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

 

[thingshappening]

Wow, a whole 22 pounds. I'll bet the bay area is bone dry today and everybody is smoking roaches. Way to go San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force!

Funny how different your world is on the Golden Coast. Back in Ohio we'd be like "Damn, 22 pounds! That guy doesn't play!"

The local narcotic task force near the town I grew up in recently completed a full task force raid with automatic weapons for like 8 grams. Seriously.

http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4966243

 

[bicyclebenny]

The local narcotic task force near the town I grew up in recently completed a full task force raid with automatic weapons for like 8 grams. Seriously.

http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4966243

Follow the money. How much overtime did those guys get paid?

 

[Yes4Prop215]

yea this shit is such a misappropriation of government funds...the police state and drug war are full of shit and the good thing is that most regular folk are starting to realize this shit by reading the comments.

every single drug bust is now full of angry posters complaining about tax money being wasted on petty marijuana....

 

[PistilPete]

Funny how different your world is on the Golden Coast. Back in Ohio we'd be like "Damn, 22 pounds! That guy doesn't play!"

The local narcotic task force near the town I grew up in recently completed a full task force raid with automatic weapons for like 8 grams. Seriously.

http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4966243

FWIW, I live on the east coast. I just realize the futility of a 22 pound bust in an area overflowing with growhouses.
22 pounds here is front page news, fully armed cops in assault vehicles, as well.

 

[zbenjii]

Gang-related growers, fuck em and everyone who pulls this shit. Thieves with guns, gives us all a bad name and hurts our cause, and depresses our market. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Guns are a product of the high risk still inherent to participating in an illegitimate business. Illegitimate sales of marijuana is still an integral part of the "market". I'm sure the majority of the market is actually illegitimate. The market we know today started illegitimately. Therefore, it really isn't your market. I think you're confused as a grower. Yes these guys could potentially "depress" the market through political consequences to growers but it is highly unlikely that the trend of legalization will end because of a few asian thugs.

What is your cause? Because I know that if caregiving didn't turn a profit, hardly anyone would do it. If you had to sell your primo buds at 50 dollars an ounce as a caregiver, then most people would probably not caregive.

What is depressing the market in terms of being a grower? Well I'm pretty sure it is the price of marijuana decreasing to the point that it is a commodity. The current price of marijuana is being pegged up by a risk premium associated with marijuana. Federal law still makes marijuana distribution and possession illegal. If it was fully legal to grow and distribute marijuana, then that risk premium disintegrates and the going price for marijuana will decrease.
What does that mean? Corporations and other limited liability entities would start using leverage to turn a profit in marijuana operations. This leverage will probably be unattainable for the residential grower. Competition between big money entities will increase and marijuana prices will decrease further.

During the last few years that medicinal marijuana was being legalized, marijuana prices in a major city far away from California have gone down more than 30 percent. That was just the effect of risk premium being decreased by a few states. Think about prices when it's not only medicinally legal but generally legal.

There are some arguments romanticizing the idea that corporations would only output low quality yields. Corporations are just entities with limited liabilities and potentially higher leverage. Since the boom in high quality organic goods started, there has been an influx of investments made in this market driving down the cost for organic goods. The same exact thing will happen if marijuana were to be fully legalized. If there is a specific demand, then that demand will eventually be filled.

 

[Hydrosun]

There is NO SUCH THING as ILLEGITIMATE cannabis sales. Unless you are talking about a fraud where someone pretends to sell cannabis but it is really something else.

You need to switch your paradigm. Just because I was born in an evil land where evil men outlawed a plant, does not mean my choice to grow and share that plant is illegitimate.

It may not be MY market, because by definition a market is the sum economic activity of all participants; but what I know for certain is this multi billion dollar industry is LEGITIMATE and will never be controlled by immoral prohibitionists.

My guess is you are not part of this market, or you would know that the price of cannabis IS decreasing despite the immoral prohibitions and the real expense and risk associated with circumventing them.

I don't think anyone on this forum thinks that growing in houses is the most efficient way to cultivate cannabis, but since prohibitions still exist many use residential buildings to circumvent immoral prohibitions.

Thanks for the economics lesson but there is no inherent ability for a corporation to out produce a sole proprietorship or any other flavor of business entity.

You see production comes from working farmers and invested capital, even hippy collectives running at a non profit pace can have farmers and capital.

As to what will be produced by which businesses; if cannabis follows other intoxicants then there will be the Budweisers of the world and there will be great micro breweries that receive a very large premium over mass produced crap.

 

[humble1]

I'd still grow it if I was guaranteed 50 bucks an oz, or if I could apply for a subsidy to pay me not to grow it for 50 bucks an oz.

 

[Hydrosun]

Gang-related growers, fuck em and everyone who pulls this shit. Thieves with guns, gives us all a bad name and hurts our cause, and depresses our market. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

The people arrested -- Queenie Y.K. Yee, 38, Bill Dao Bian Qi, 33, Wilson S. Cheung, 50, all three of Millbrae; Winnie Jiang Phan, 47, Qian Wen Li, 47, Hu Weiren, 49, Jia Li Hu, 20, Weix Lian, 48, Wendy Lau, 49, all six of San Francisco; and Zei Wei Chen, 42, of Alameda -- are being held in lieu of $1 million bail each.

The list above doesn't scream gang-banger to me. I know 47 year old Winnie and 49 year old Wendy are some tough birds but the rest of them are pikers!

I don't agree with them stealing power but besides that there is nothing they are accused of that has harmed ANYONE!

The pigs smashed up 15 houses in the bay area and stole 22lbs and $100,000 in cash from these hard working people.

There are no accusations that these people were robbing and stealing to have $100,000. The state and federal government will spend well more than that 100K for these raids and related trials.

What do we as a society get out of all of this? Wasted dollars by the millions and 10 fucking people put in a cage or shipped out of the country.

Certainly not something that would make one proud to be American.

 

[kyndone]

Guns are a product of the high risk still inherent to participating in an illegitimate business.

and hydrosun, it is illegitimate if it is not sold legally, which is the case with most folks, unless they are doing it through a licensed co-op, even some of theese co-ops we have here in diego are illegitimate, and are getting shut down.

i agree, and stand for,( though i do not like guns ), our right to bare arms, and in the right hands, (people who are not f-d up in the head, or criminals/gangsters) they can be a good way to protect yourself, a friend of mine recently had his door kicked in by three guys in ski masks, and guns who robbed him of his grow, took all his money,and bashed him in the head with one of their guns,(he was not even fighting with them, he is 5-5ft. tall and weighs a buck fifty with wet cloths on)now, i have no idea, (other than what he has told me) what it feels like to be that scared,helpless, or violated,(and after all the damage done) angry, but i do know, he went and bought 2 9mil hand guns, and is almost daily going to the indoor firing range, i am more afraid for him now, because i wonder all the time, if he would have had a gun that night, would he even still be alive today, but i also know, i would never want to go through what he has gone through,, and that im not one to give up my rights, or amendments, (even though the gov. is slowly trying to take them away) even i am considering getting one, just for protection only.

 

[smoke1sun]

Gang banger my ass.
Just another bullshit way to justify a waste of time and money.

I agree stealing power was the only thing these "gang bangers" did wrong.

 

[Hydrosun]

Again please change your paradigm. It is illegal to be Christian in Saudi Arabia, It was illegal to be a Jew in Nazi Germany.

It was legal to sell slaves on the docks of South Carolina for many generations.

You keep your laws and I'll keep my morality.

The only legal Jews are the ones that sign up with the Gestapo and wear a bright yellow 6 pointed star.

Licensed co-ops are the registered Jews of this land of the free.

I will never come around to your way of thinking that might makes right irrespective of morality.

Jefferson, Lincoln, MLK, Franklin, Madison and many others all held the belief that immoral laws are void on their face. I'll stick with those guys, not the corruption of smaller men.

 

[kyndone]

and yes i would still grow, if it were worth nothing, i love growing, and i love smoking what I myself have created, i love the way the fruit looks when its going through the changes, and even if i could buy it for 5 bucks a gram, or 50 bucks an ounce, i still would not know, what chemicals and whatever was added to the grow, or how it was flushed, or if it were plucked too early, or too late, if i do it, i know all these things.

 

[kyndone]

ok, i see what you are saying hydrosun, big picture,and whatnot, and yes in that perspective,the co-ops are the jews, though i dont think anyone has been forced at gunpoint to put their names on the lists, it is gov. control, they want their (gov.) dirty little hands in everyones pie, and they want to know who is doing what, with how many cookies, its a game., America has become a big game, and ultimately we (American people) are going to struggle to win, we are going broke paying for gas, electric,and food, criminals have more money and guns, than any average American person does, judges and politicians are payed off, or bribed, almost, daily, cops are losing the drug war, its a mess. but i think we are talking about this on the wrong forum.

 

[Hydrosun]

cops are losing the drug war, its a mess. but i think we are talking about this on the wrong forum.

This is the perfect place to discuss "Cops losing the drug war."

This "Gang" of 10 middle aged immigrants has now been put out of business at the expense of the tax payers of America and CA.

What do these tax payers get? $100K, 22lbs of weed off the street and 10 individuals in California no longer cultivating cannabis.

What did it cost the tax payers? ????????? I guess transparency in government spending is a really low priority. I could only guess at the costs involved; but they did mention DEA, Imigration, and Local authorities (from several counties). So my guess is the costs of this are already in the millions and after the trials, deportations, or incarcerations it certainly will be multi millions.

What about this proposition: Police will never WIN a Drug War BECAUSE it is the very essence of HUMAN nature to take drugs and alter (escape) their reality.

Outlawing HUMAN NATURE does not abolish a behavior it only changes how that behavior is expressed.

As an example it is illegal to be gay in some nations around the globe, but I doubt the genetics of babies being born in those countries recognize this law.

The absolute failure of "The drug war" is evident by this story. If this is the best prohibitionists can do to scare the country into supporting them, they'll be unemployed sooner than I thought.

 

[Hydrosun]

Those facing imprisonment over cannabis, often put their names on the government list of cannabis users or caregivers. So yes the government is using guns (threat of imprisonment) to get free people to "Out themselves."