Maine is the newest frontier for the illicit marijuana trade, with potentially hundreds of suspected unlicensed grow houses operating in the state, a CBS News investigation has found. It's part of a larger phenomenon nationwide. Thousands of illegal marijuana farms have been cropping up in states like Oklahoma, California and Colorado, according to Raymond Donovan, the former chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency.
'In order to accommodate that amount of energy, you need to upgrade your electrical infrastructure — and significantly. We're getting into specialty electrical equipment that is very scarce and hard to come by, especially in the state of Maine.'Mercier says he used one of Robinson's articles as a training tool in what to look for before executing the search warrant at the Machias property.