Rep. Lamborn meets with local & federal agencies over illegal marijuana
Local law enforcement and federal agencies all came together in one room to sit down and speak directly with Republican Representative Doug Lamborn.
At a roundtable meeting representatives with Colorado Springs Police, Teller County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and others openly discussed one problem that’s plaguing the front range; illegal marijuana on public lands.
The U.S. Forest Service Special Agent in Charge, Kent Delbon showed a graph to the group that showed the number of arrests increasing on public lands since the drug was legalized in Colorado.
Delbon said it appeared criminals start grows in those rural forest-covered areas with the idea that they’d get away with it.
Lamborn said, “this is something that creates environmental damage, it produced a new product that is grown illegally so it’s not taxed and it goes to other states.”
We’ve seen dozens of grows infiltrate homes across Teller and El Paso County, but none on public lands. That’s because they’re harder to spot and they leave behind an environmental mess. He says, “herbicides things like that have a devastating impact on the beautiful national lands we have in the national forest. These things are really destructive to the environment.”
The agency representatives were hoping to get the congressman’s ear in hopes that he could help find a solution in Washington D.C. Lamborn says the right laws are already in place, but it might take funding to provide more tools and resources to those agencies before the problem gets bigger.
Sitting next to Rep. Lamborn was fellow lawmaker Rep. Rob Bishop who expressed concerns for his own state of Utah.
