Brea Police officers bag up marijuana plants after they served a search warrant and arrested two people at an illegal marijuana growing operation. Growing and selling marijuana on the black market remains a lucrative business in California — long after voters approved recreational pot sales and use in 2016. But state enforcement officials have kept busy trying to dismantle illicit production to better support legal ventures.
Additionally, officials further north in Contra Costa County shut down 20 illegal indoor cannabis cultivators in Antioch, Brentwood, Pittsburg and Discovery Bay, which was valued at more than $15.3 million in cannabis last June. Efforts to shut down illegal cannabis operations rely heavily on intelligence gathering and targeted investigations, according to Bill Jones, chief of the law enforcement division of the Department of Cannabis Control, which was established in July 2021.earlier this month that the black market is “definitely larger” than the legal market.