In a place with a mysterious name, the emerald triangle. At its heart, the infamous humboldt county, with thousands of illegal pot farms. We are the center of Marijuana Production right now. In the United States . Yes, the United States. But thanks to a new law, things are changes. Proposition 64 has passed in california. Lemonis as of new years day, any adult can buy pot here without a prescription, and the black market is starting to go legit. Im marcus lemonis. This summer, i traveled to l. A. Were ending prohibition and were mainstreaming pot. And the desert. Did the vote passing increase the odds of you becoming a billionaire some day . Absolutely. Now ive come to where it all began and where the money is pouring in. So all the real estate you work on is for the Marijuana Industry . Yeah. Its going to be a huge market. Californias now the largest Legal Marijuana market in the world. Will the feds step in and try to stop it, or is it time for me to invest . My journey began on the avenue of the giants, a magical drive through the largest stand of untouched redwood trees in the world. Welcome to marijuana country humboldt county, california. People have been growing pot up in the hills here since the 60s. It turns out some of them are still at it. But if you want to meet these pioneers of pot, and trust me, you do, you have to work for it. Think over the river and through the woods, and then some. It took me half an hour to drive just six miles of unmarked dirt roads. Hi there. Hi. Very nice to meet you. And at the end tom and Karen Hesslers 40acre farm. Honestly, if i had to describe your land to somebody, i couldnt. Its like in a fairytale book. Its so beautiful and so removed. Thank you. How long have you lived up here . Since 1971. Now i dont want to make you feel a little bit older, but thats before i was born. I know. Thats what i was thinking. Karen is a nurse with a green thumb. Toms an artist. Originally from new york, they came up here to get away from it all, literally. So, when you left, you said im moving to california, and im going to grow marijuana. No, no. We came to be selfsufficient and for tom to be able to do his artwork. It was mostly we make all of our own food. We make all of our own electricity. Lemonis this farm is their lifes work. They built the house by hand, raised two kids here, and helped put humboldt county on the map. Tom we were people who started this industry. There was nobody growing weed. There was nobody here, marcus. Every piece of land was for sale when we started you could have bought the whole mountain for a hundred bucks. 36,000 for the whole valley you want to buy it everything you see . Thats not today. No. Today it will be 36 million. Yeah. What did you pay for your land. [ chuckles ] you dont even want to say . 9,000. For all 40 acres. 40plus acres. This was the poorest county in the United States when we came here. Logging was completely gone. Fishing was wiped out. This was a depressed area. And so is the depression of this area the reason that cannabis came to be . Yes. Nowadays theres plenty of competition. Get this out of here. But tom and karen still do things way they always have. Come on bella. And for a couple in their 70s, i got to say, its very impressive. Karen we grow it outside. You do . Yes. We only started in the greenhouse. They call the place amaranth farms. They grow 18 kinds of pot, but specialize in strains for medical use. And who planted all this . You did . We had a help with some. Time to roll up my sleeves. Okay, hold on. I want do a little bit of this. Mines going to grow. Tom now, dont fill it too thats it. Little more. Hey, im taking instruction from her. Okay. Karen you have to get it out of here. You hold it on the side gently. You dont want to hurt the roots. Yeah, there you go. Good. Little hole. Yeah. And then put it in there. [ laughs ] i saw that marcus. No, you didnt. Dont tell the boss. Youll need more soil so it stays up. Okay. This is team work. Which ones mine, by the way . This was yours. Okay. I think mine looks better than yours. Ive just got to be honest with you. You know, i meet people all the time. I dont know what id do for a living. Yes. But i invest in small businesses. Yeah. Okay . And im always having to deal with Family Businesses and their struggles, and husbands and wives working together. Is the dynamic between the two of you always this good . Yeah. Id say pretty much. Is it because of this . [ laughter ] or is it because youre legitimately always in agreement . I love her lemonis tom and karens story is the story of pot in humboldt county, right down to the seeds. Where did you get your first seeds from . Mexico. From stuff we smoked over the years. Okay. Then a man went to afghanistan. A man you knew. We dropped him off at the airport. He went to afghan a local guy. He said, give me a ride to the airport, ill bring you a seed back. Yeah. Lemonis from what i hear, those seeds and the plants they produced would cement humboldts place as pot capital of the United States. Man this area called humboldt county doesnt seem like california. Lemonis it was the mid70s. Man they say people here are different, that they think differently. Lemonis and as that weed grew in reputation, folks here realized they could make some serious money. By the 1980s, humboldts economy was riding high on pot, and supplying cities across the u. S. , and that caught the attention of law enforcement. Man ready to go. Even after california legalized medical marijuana in 1996. Man theres another big batch. The crackdowns continued. Through it all, tom and karen stayed up on the mountain, tending their crop and raising their family. Their son, nya, and their daughter, elan, both helped out on the farm, but it wasnt always idyllic. Lemonis did you know what your parents did when you were young . Did you understand that they were essentially involved in illegal activity . Oh, yeah. You did know that . Yeah. Yeah, we knew. Yes. And how old were you when you say you found out . Probably seven or eight. Same for you . I think so. I think, you know, it was just kind of the way they raised us. It was just so natural, and then you started going to school and it was like, oh, boy. And certain kids in school you avoided, because their dad with a sheriff. Did you ever wonder if your parents were going to go to jail . Oh, yeah, all the time. Yeah. So youd be riding the School Bus Home and watch the sheriff vehicles heading out, loaded down with what they had taken. From you guys . No. No. But you didnt know when youre coming home and theyre passing you, and im thinking, is my mom or dad in that car . Are they going to pick up at the School Bus Stop . You just kind of worry until you get there and see if theyre there to meet you or not. That is scary. You know, ive been right here when ive woken up if were watching the house when the parents are gone and i wake up with a guy with a machine gun and in a helicopter pointing it at you, you know. Come on. Oh, yeah, no, multiple times. And, actually, that one time, they chased me all the way through the woods with a helicopter for, like, 45 minutes. With you running . Yeah. I just finally stopped and just sat there and waited. They finally just flew off. Lemonis but even that couldnt keep nya and elan from joining the family business. And now theyre helping their parents fulfill a lifelong dream, getting a permit for their farm. Theyve already spent 75,000 to get everything up to code. Why did you decide, after all those years at the top of the mountain, where it takes an hour to get up the road and its bumpy, and its not easy, why did you decide that it was appropriate to follow the law . Well, you finally get tired of helicopters. The harassing gets to you. And maybe youre sleeping with both eyes closed now, as opposed to one eye open . Yeah. Yeah. Lemonis when it comes to the law, they got lucky. Not everyone in the neighborhood can say that. Johnny casali lives just down the road. Tom and karen consider him family. We know where you live and youre so special to us. These days, his life looks a lot like there is, but it wasnt always that way. You love this land, dont you . I grew up here, and theres just something inside me that i just cant shake it. Johnny has lived on his 40acre farm since he was five, and growing marijuana is in his dna. Who taught you all this . This is mom. Mom taught you how to do this . Mom was one of the greatest horticulturalists ever, and i just learned with her. I learned a lot of things from my mother, but growing pot, well, that wasnt one of them. She just always had a love for plants, and that kind of just transferred to me, and i just started following her around and enjoying it just like she did. Family, his farm, freedom, these things mattered to johnny because he knows what it feels like to have them taken away. Coming up, johnny casalis story takes a dramatic turn. I woke up at 6 00 in the morning, 30 federal agents showed up at my door, guns to my head. Whoa. Heres a razor that works differently. The Gillette Skinguard it has a guard between the blades that helps protect skin. The Gillette Skinguard. Original crown molding, walk in closets. We do have a ratt problem. Round and round with love well find a way, just give it time. At least geico makes bundling our home and Car Insurance easy. It does help us save. Round and round with love well find a way, just give it time. Round and round what comes around, goes around. For bundling made easy, go to geico. Com seeing the break in the clouds before anyone else. Together, well weather this storm. Kills 99. 9 of bacteria on tidfabrics you cant wash spray spraysa and sanitizes hard to wash fabrics. From americas number one trusted detergent. Get relief behind the allecounter with claritind. Ion claritind improves nasal airflow 2x more than the leading allergy spray at hour 1. Claritind. Get more airflow. [elevator bell] yup. Little choices make a big difference. Like delicious fruits and veggies. However you healthy. Naked. Its more than just fast. It keeps all your devices running smoothly. With builtin security that protects your kids. No matter what theyre up to. It protects your info. And gives you 24 7 peace of mind. That if its connected, its protected. Even that that petcamera thingy. [ whines ] can your internet do that . Xfinity xfi can because its. Simple, easy, awesome. [ barking ] lemonis i didnt know what to expect when i got to humboldt county, but it definitely wasnt the story like johnny casalis. Johnny is a marijuana farmer, easy going and soft spoken. He was raised on this land, and its the place where his life would change forever. One morning i woke up at 6 00 in the morning to 30 federal agents showed up at my door. Whoa. Guns to my head. They searched my property. They searched the house. It was 1992. Johnny and his best friend were caught growing 1,500 marijuana plants. [ helicopter blades whirring ] at that time, there was a lot of eradication going on in humboldt, and they were trying to make an example out of us. And you stopped. All the plants went away. Oh, we stopped because you had a gun at your head. He was charged with eight federal counts, including conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana. We told the judge, hey, look, were guilty. But i thought it was super important to tell the judge, i want you to know before you sentence me that im somebody that i would never hurt a Single Person and i care about [ coughs ] i care about my family and my friends. [ clears throat ] why did you want him to know that . I dont know why it was important to me, but it was. And, you know, his hands were tied. Growing more than a thousand plants meant the mandatory minimum sentence, ten years in prison. Johnny had no prior criminal record. He was 29 years old. Your mom was able to come see you there . My mom was able to come see me, and then how was that for her . That was probably the toughest thing for me, because she held a lot of guilt inside and she blamed herself. Maybe if she wouldnt have brought me up here maybe this wouldnt have happened. But i never felt that way. Johnnys mother died when he was behind bars. He ended up serving nearly eight years. How long have you been out . Its like 13 years now. And now youre standing in the middle of and now im back doing something that i have so deeply embedded in me. This farm is about showing the Cannabis Community that theres a right and a wrong way that you can grow cannabis. This time its all legal. Hes got a permit. How many plants are in here . So on this whole farm theres, like, 2,200 plants. So theres more here today than when you went to jail. Yes. Its ironic, isnt it . Its ironic, and its scary. You scared that somethings going to change and youll have to go back . No. Does it haunt you a little bit . Well, it haunts everybody thats ever lived here. The minute you hear a helicopter, its a whole different feeling. I dont care if youre permitted. I dont care if youre not. I heard about that fear again and again from the farmers i met. Decades of hiding from the law cant be erased overnight. But now those choppers arent going after farmers like johnny casali, theyre chasing bigtime illegal growers. Sheriff. Yes. Nice to meet you. Pleasure to meet you. Billy honsal is the sheriff of humboldt county, a local guy born and bred. For him, the fight against pot is in his blood. When you were growing up, you knew, really, what the dirty little secret was about the county . Absolutely, because my dad was in law enforcement. Okay. My mom was in education. No matter what part of humboldt county you grew up in, you saw marijuana and the people that were associated with it. And most of those people have decided to stay outside the law, because going legal means paying taxes. Sheriff honsal has just two officers in his marijuana unit, doing battle against 10,000 illegal grows. How many can you get to a year . Maybe 125. And while youre getting to the 125, how many are popping up at the same time, 225 . Possibly. You want to take a ride . Yeah, lets go. Ill show you all around here. Lets go. To see exactly what the sheriff and his men are up against, i wanted to get a birdseye view. Man all right, everyone, were lifting. Lemonis we took off from a town near the coast and flew inland over miles of dense forest and snaking rivers. Just one of every ten farms is going for a permit. From the air, i couldnt tell the difference between whats legal and whats not. While were up here, is it safe to say that people down below are tracking our whereabouts . This helicopter flying here is causing a lot of angst and anxiety with a lot of people. But for the sheriffs deputies, its the best way to find illegal growers. Once they do, they roll in, over roads that are unmarked, unpaved, and unwelcomed. How much organized crime is running through these hills . Theres a lot of it. You have International Drug trafficking organizations that are here. Anywhere where they can go and make money, theyre going to come. And the sheriff suspects one of those cartels is here, trespassing on the hoopa valley indian reservation. As officers fly over the area, they spot a clearing packed with cannabis plants. After a hike deep into the forest, they discover a camp pitched in between the trees, gun drawn, a deputy moves in. The suspects get away, leaving everything behind. Based upon the food thats here, it looks like mexican nationals might be here. But we dont know which organization they might be tied to. This is a methamphetamine pipe right here. It looks like theres two people. Thats all it takes. All this speckled white grayish substance on these leaves, thats them spraying it. That not fertilizer. Thats a pesticide, and thats going to hit the streets. The team works its way uphill, destroying the crop. Five hours later, theyre air lifted out. Whats the plant count . Total number was 4,608. Fully grown, those 4,600 plans would have produced some 4,600 pounds of pot. In california, at a thousand bucks a pound, thats worth about 4. 5 million. But drive that weed to new york city, where it can sell for five grand a pound on the street, were talking 23 million. The sheriff says that kind of money is driving crime in his county. You know, we have one area of humboldt that weve nicknamed murder mountain because so many murders have happened there. Every year we have people that call us and say, my son or daughter, my friend who went to humboldt county to work in the Marijuana Industry, i havent heard from them in months, and we dont know where they go. Is there a lot of this marijuana a dea issue . They were really a big help in the 1980s. The federal resources kind of they turned off the faucet and weve had a hard time keeping up ever since. Another big concern, the illegal grows are killing the environment. You see how greenhouses are growing right next to the creek. All of the nutrients that people are feeding their marijuana, all of their insecticides are now flowing into this river and killing off all of the fish out of there. Well, that seems like, for me, if i was in your job, the first place i would start is run the river trail. Yes. I mean, you can see this here is a natural salmon creek here, and theyre got these terrible structures right on the creek. The state has spent millions to restore the endangered fish populations. Its also beefed up environment laws, which are now one of the sheriffs biggest weapons. Its a misdemeanor to grow marijuana in california. So you just get a citation . You can get a citation. But where the real felony happens is the environment crimes. So growing marijuana, you know. Yeah. And then damaging the environment, thats what makes it a felony in california. Its like al capone went to jail for taxes. Yes. As opposed to killing people. Thats right, exactly. Grow a thousand plants, its a misdemeanor. But hurt the environment, thats a felony. The sheriff is determined, but hes up against a ton of resistance in a county peppered with outlaws. What i saw out there and what ive heard sounds more like the wild west than it does some organized applyforapermit process, and somebodys going to get shot. It has happened. Youre in a real drug war here. Unfortunately, yes, we are. This is the last thing i want to deal with is freaking marijuana. Up next, going big or going broke, a new generation betting the farm on pot. Are you the first grower in humboldt county . Our company was probably one of the first, for sure, at our scale, by far. engine revving soft beeps little choices make a big difference. Like nutritious fruit smoothies. However you healthy. Naked. Tide cleaners is offeringe Free Laundry Services you. To the family of frontline responders. Visit hope. Tidecleaners. Com to l