Riverside Board of Supervisors Received $160,000 Grant from the DEA to Team Up with Federal Law Enforcement Against Illegal Operators in Unincorporated Riverside County

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors formally accepted a $160,000 grant from the DEA for the Riverside Sheriff’s Department to gather and report intelligence data to the DEA relating to the illicit cultivation, possession and distribution of illicit cannabis; investigate and report trafficking of controlled substances; provide law enforcement personnel for the eradication of the illicit cannabis market; make arrests and prosecute controlled substances crimes; and send samples of the eradicated illicit cannabis to the National Institute on Drug Abuse Potency Monitoring Project.

The $160,000, “must only be used for marijuana eradication program activities in a manner consistent with the Controlled Substances Act,” according to the grant acceptance letter agreement.  To read the entire agreement, click here.

The timing of this accepted grant could not be worse.  Riverside County has been working on an ordinance to authorize legal cannabis activity and had already instructed the County counsel to draft the ordinance and development agreement.  Like Los Angeles, the County of Riverside seems to be talking out of both sides of its mouth.  It gave cultivators hope that there would be a pathway to legal operations, only to delay and team up with the DEA.