EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,346 words- 0:00 – 0:00
Intro
- JNJohn Nores
... next month.
- 0:00 – 2:06
From traditional game warden work to discovering cartel grow sites
- JRJoe Rogan
Ready? Boom. All right, we're live. Hello, Jon. What's up, man? How are you?
- JNJohn Nores
Hey, Joe. How you doing?
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.
- JNJohn Nores
Thanks a lot for having me, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- JNJohn Nores
It's great.
- JRJoe Rogan
... I heard you on MeatEater podcast, and-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... uh, it blew my mind. I mean, I c- I could not-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... believe. L- let's just let everybody know what this is about. You were a game warden, or you are a game warden.
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what that normally entails is like, you know, you find a guy and he's got three trout when he's only supposed to have-
- JNJohn Nores
Right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... two. It's, uh, normal stuff, like catch-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... catch, catching people doing something they're not supposed to, or just making sure people follow the rules.
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
(smacks lips) Along the way, you guys started discovering these illegal grow ops-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where cartels were growing marijuana.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you turned from being a regular game warden to essentially... Well, uh, why don't you let us know what, how it worked out?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah, Joe. It was, it was a crazy journey because you don't think of game wardens doing the type of work we were doing when it come to the, the trespass grows-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
... and the cartel issue, you know. And what do everybody think? They think game wardens check fishing licenses-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
... check your deer tag or elk tag, look for too many, you know, animals, poaching, spotlighting. And honestly, when I started the job, I got hired back in 1992, that's what I dreamed of doing, you know. I grew up hunting and fishing, and I got my hunter safety certificate with, with dad's help at nine years old, so I was all in the woods. You know, the woods are my church. I just loved it because three generations of family, my grandfather's career Navy, my dad, you know, as an army guy. And, you know, we just had conservation in our family, you know, um, for generations. So I got the job, did it, and I did all the traditional stuff to start. Came down here to Southern California to start my career in Riverside County. (smacks lips) So it was just over the hill, you know, from, from LA here, and working all the traditional stuff, fishing regulations, night hunting, you know, working deer openers. It was really cool to be a deer hunter for all those years and then actually go w- you know, talk to guys on the other side and see all the good guys out there, and some problems. Um, and then in, uh, 1995, I got to go back home toward the Silicon Valley. That's where I'm originally from, born and raised.
- 2:06 – 5:16
2004: The first trespass grow—dry creek, armed guards, and environmental shock
- JNJohn Nores
So live in the suburbs, kind of the foothill areas of, uh, the Silicon Valley, south of San Jose there. And in 2004, I f- I stumbled into my first, uh, you know, cartel, what we call a trespass marijuana grow site. And, you know, to specify this stuff now, now that we're regulating, you know, the last couple of years here in California, these are not sanctioned marijuana sites. This isn't the legitimate industry that's doing it by the numbers and trying to. (smacks lips) This is kind of always illegal. Uh, these are always here, you know, on public lands, destroying our environmental waterways and our wildlife, and on private land as well. And on that situation, I had a good friend of mine that I grew up with, um, that was doing his master's thesis at San Jose State University, both of our alma mater, on steelhead trout, endangered species, red-legged, yellow-legged frog, and all the aquatics in these two creeks. And this was right below Henry Coe State Park, where I really met my first game warden that was an inspiration to get the job. So these waterways are really sensitive. Headwaters coming down through this stretch for like three miles, all these endangered species in it, black-tailed deer, you know, all these other great animals we like as conservationists, they're thriving on this creek. And he called me one day in April and said, "Hey, Jon, this is weird. One of my two creeks is bone dry and all the fish, the steelhead fry are dead. You know, everything living on this creek is dead. There's a bunch of like debris and plastic lining and looks like camping stuff that's down at the bottom of where this creek feeds out." So I get him in the truck and I figure, I'm thinking, "Okay, someone's diverting water up there. It's probably a rancher needing it for cattle operation, whatever." We go to the top of the hill, Joe, then we start the hike down and I'm by myself. You know, I got my, I was, I got my rifle, got my gear, don't have any radio coverage, don't have any cell phone coverage, and I have an unarmed civilian, my partner, a biologist, with me. And we're expecting to find something very predictable that I'd seen up to that point, and that would have been a normal water diversion. And when we found the water source in a beautiful canyon, I mean, crystal clear water, trout creek, the whole nine, start hiking down it following this, uh, we see the dam, we see the water line, go about 100 yards down this beautiful little Grand Canyon-like creek, and there's a bunch of marijuana plants. And they're, they're short because it's early in the season. They're only about two feet tall. And we see two growers, and they're not the growers I'm typ- you know, that I would have suspected. These guys are, you know, they got rifles, they got handguns, they got knives, and they're kind of cruising, working their plants, coming toward us. And that was that oh shit moment, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
If something crazy goes down right now and I got no backup, I got a civilian with me, these guys are armed, they're not your typical poacher that I've ever encountered, and, um, we didn't get seen. We kind of hid out, you know. He's a hunter, I'm a hunter. We stayed, you know, using our stocking and standing at the creek bank and just, just watched as these guys worked their plantation and went on up the hill. And I looked at this and went, "What did we just walk into? This is crazy." Um, we got out safely, and that's when I started to bring in other agencies, narcotic groups, task forces, the sheriff's office, um, me- you know, started to learn other agencies in my area. This is early on in the game.
- 5:16 – 9:28
Early raids focused on plant counts, not restoration—why cleanup was ignored
- JRJoe Rogan
What did you guys do about that one grow op? Like when you found it, like how did, how did they resolve that?
- JNJohn Nores
Well, we got a team together as fast as we could safely, and usually it takes a couple of weeks, and I want to say within a month we were back there. Now the interesting part was game wardens aren't known for doing this type of work, just like you said-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
... at the start, right? So they're like, "Well, you guys know the area, you went in there, help us find it, get us into the area, but we're gonna lead the raid." And we said, "Of course, this is your jurisdiction. We don't normally do this type of stuff, so, uh, so go for it." So we were the bird dogs. We kind of guided them into the area. We, uh, had like 20, 30 officers. We, uh, kind of led them down to the canyon, got them in there safely. Um, we found the two growers, we spooked them, they didn't get caught that day. They, they ran down the canyon. Nobody pursued. Some of us wanted to, obviously because of the environmental damages, but-The biggest thing that changed the game for me that day was seeing the environmental damage. So there was a 7,000 plant garden and at the time, we didn't know about these banned toxic substances, these insecticides, carbofuran, that they're bringing up from Tijuana and, and transporting, actually smuggling from across the border to put on these plants to keep everything living off of it, not to impact their cash crop. And that was out there in some extent, but it was so early, we weren't really aware of the level of toxicity to this stuff and how damaging it is. Um, so it was all new. But we, we eradicated that, that garden. And then when we were done eradicating it, we had all this mess in the creek, right? We had camp trash. We had fertilizers, pollutants, propane tanks, um, all over in this beautiful channel that's now dry because it's been diverted. Unbeknownst to us, all that water was totally poisoned that they were diverting to water the plants. That's why that creek was so dry. Um, and we, we, uh, we eradicated everything and then it was like, "Okay, we're outta here." And I looked around and went, "Wait a minute, man. I know we got the, I know we got the illegal marijuana out, but what are we gonna do about all this environmental damage?" And nobody was reclamating the damage or, or, or cleaning up any of this mess. So I, the first thing I thought was, "We have a resource issue that's crazy." I mean, I've, you know, spent my whole career up to this point protecting wildlife, preserving waterways for all of us to enjoy. You know, conservationists, enthusiasts, whatever side of the fence you're on. And, uh, nothing was getting done on that, so kinda the light bulb went off a little bit that we need to do more to this if we're gonna get involved and we need to get involved in these type of grow operations because it was the biggest environmental, um, you know, train wreck I'd ever seen. And I'd worked a lot of traditional game wardens stuff to, to protect those resources.
- JRJoe Rogan
So once they had gotten everyone out and g- g- chopped all the plants up or did what they did-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... did they try to reclaim the, the creek? Did they try to remove the dam and get the water to run back again?
- JNJohn Nores
At that time, no. No one was doing it right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- JNJohn Nores
And that's, that was exactly really what, what really, really kinda upset me. And again, we were new at the game. We were the game wardens. Nobody really thought of us as mainline law enforcement or, you know, narcotics task force guys or anything like that at the time. So I wasn't gonna make waves. We just wanted to integrate and work together. We wanted to unify these teams. And what I really wanted to do at this point is get back with my command staff and, you know, my bosses and go, "Hey, we got a big, big problem out there, man." And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
... there's more of this going on and we need to be involved even though it's not traditional because we're sworn to protect our resources and..." Well, besides everything game wardens do that you think of from the wildlife standpoint, we're mainline law enforcement just like every police officer, right? We go through the same training. And then what people don't realize is we go through two more months of additional training in a really long academy that's all wildlife specific. Wildlife forensics, wildlife ID, weapons identification, all the things you really need to do the game warden side of it with wildlife, you know, in the back country, so to speak. Um, but we needed to integrate with other agencies and kinda bring them into our world if we were gonna participate. So that one case started the change in me to try to build those relationships and get into tactics and tactical circles with some of these, you know, SWAT and special operations units that would go in and do this job.
- 9:28 – 13:20
How water diversion laws should work—and why grow ops were “new territory”
- JRJoe Rogan
Under normal circumstances, if that was just being diverted by a rancher, so if a rancher had done that-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and the creek was dry, how would you f- how would you fix that?
- JNJohn Nores
We would've got with him and it, it's what's called a stream alteration violation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
And it's 1602 in our fish and game code is the section, but, and it's a very common section 'cause water's diverted for a lot of reasons. And you can divert water with a permit in certain circumstances, but you can't completely denude a creek that has wildlife thriving, that's a waterway of the state for everybody to enjoy, which this one was.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if... Normally, the case would be that they would have to re v- just have the, the flow come back to exactly how it was before, to remove-
- JNJohn Nores
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the dam and-
- JNJohn Nores
Yep. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that would be up to the rancher?
- JNJohn Nores
That would be up to the rancher. It'd be part of a penalty.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JNJohn Nores
You know, it could be a civil, it could be a criminal, it could be a probationary, fix it and you're okay. It just depends-
- JRJoe Rogan
So there was no real... There's no law involved or n- nothing in place, rather, to s- when you found these grow ops, like there was no previous precedent.
- JNJohn Nores
R- exactly. It was, it was completely brand new and this was, you know, one of the first grows I think that any of us have found throughout the state of California as game wardens. I mean, there were other guys finding some things and working, but being from the Silicon Valley and being inspired by those wild lands to everything I became later and what I stand for, it was home. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
And it, it hit home, but seeing that and getting to meet certain guys from the sheriff's department, and my first book goes into this whole learning experience of, you know, ad hoc jumping in with other agencies and doing it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is this The Hidden War?
- JNJohn Nores
Uh, this was the first book, War in the Woods.
- JRJoe Rogan
War in the Woods.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah, it was-
- JRJoe Rogan
So you wrote War in the Woods and then Hidden War is the new one?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. Hidden War is the brand new one that just came out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- JNJohn Nores
And they're basically 10 years apart. And the cool part about that, Joe, is when you look at the differences, we do some major comparisons, and what War in the Woods covers is that chapter one's that first mission I'm telling you about right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JNJohn Nores
Because I was like, "Ding. Here it is."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
You know, we're not in Kansas anymore. Something's crazy.
- 13:20 – 17:34
2005 gunfight: ambush at a grow site and the tactical turning point
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah, yeah. It was, it was the start of a big shift in my career because I saw this as a big problem. I also, um, up until in 2005, we were on, you know, one of our first, second, third since... third operations since this one we just mentioned in 2004. And in Au- August 5th of 2005, the game completely changed 'cause that's when we were involved in our first gunfight. And that's when my partner warden, who I had trained in the academy, we were partners in the squad, I had promoted to be the lieutenant for two and a half counties, the Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County, Monterey, part of, uh, um, San Benito, 20 days before this incident happened. And I had young wardens that wanted to part- participate and do some of the stuff I was doing with the other agencies on the marijuana, you know, operational front. And this was, you know, right above the tech capital of the world right there in Silicon Valley-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
... in Los Gatos. We were in really steep, arid country, you know, August, right before the A zone deer opener. We were all gearing up for that. And it was three game wardens, three sheriff's officers, um, good sheriff's officers that we met on that first operation in 2004 I just, uh, gave you the story on. And, um, they were in harvest time. They were fortified. They had heavy weapons like SKSs, the AK-47 derivatives, sawed-off shotguns. And they had the grow set up where they were basically defending it. And when we came in, there was an ambush shot from one of the growers, and that sh- was the one shot the bad guys got off. And unfortunately, that's the shot that hit my partner, um, through both legs. And that bullet went through the right thigh and tumbled through his right leg, then kept going through his left. So he's down and we're trying to keep him from bleeding out of four holes for the better part of three hours waiting for an air rescue. And we had ni- you know, nobody in the country from the standpoint of a law enforcement team had ever been counterattacked by these growers. We'd s- you know, we chased them around, they'd run away. Sometimes we'd find weapons, oftentimes we wouldn't. But, so this was just a real eye-opener, like, "What the f- fuck did we just walk into?" And plus, my partner was real close to not making it. And fortunately, he did survive, or I don't know that we'd be sitting here telling this story and talking about it. But that day, when I saw how well they were equipped, the type of weaponry they had, um, and the fact that I don't, almost didn't come home that day, I went, "Okay, this is super dangerous. We can't do this as standard patrol game wardens. We can't do this doing just the traditional stuff. We should stay involved in it because aside from being so violent, the environmental damages, Joe, were the worst I'd still ever seen." And they just kept getting worse and worse the more operations I'd work in my home county, right? Um, so we learned a lot from that. There were a lot of tactical lessons. There were a lot of team lessons, a lot of things we could have done different. And that kinda changed the game where we eventually got to what we're gonna talk about a little bit later.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, since 2004, have there been plans implemented to clean up-
- JNJohn Nores
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and also restore waterways and all the different-
- JNJohn Nores
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
Absolutely. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
So now, there's like a whole... They realized this is an issue and so there's, there's precedent. There's-
- JNJohn Nores
Very much so. And, and that largely came from what we saw, you know, in those early years, the 2004 first op on, down there on Dexter Canyon Creek and then what we had on Sierra Azul when my partner was shot in 2005. About then, we started to also see the banned poisons in these grows, like the Carbofurin bottles. Um, and just to give a background, this stuff is so deadly, um, it was made as an insecticide or rodenticide just to kill anything that you put on any type of agricultural product. And it was made originally back in, I think, like, the '50s for legitimate agriculture. And then they found out how toxic it was, and EPA banned it from use or even possession. It's a felony to have it in the country and use it anywhere without special licenses, um, through legitimate channels here in America. And they banned it, like, 15 years ago because it was so nasty. But because it does keep everything off the marijuana plants, I mean, nothing can c- even get near it without dying almost instantly, they still get it in third world countries. They can get it in Mexico and it gets smuggled across the border with the grow groups, the, the drug trafficking groups because it's so effective regardless how poisonous it is. And we were starting to see more and more of that stuff as we were starting to ramp more of a specialty to doing this job more, you know, thoroughly and safely and get into the cleanup.
- 17:34 – 22:57
Poisoned weed and national spread: carbofuran, health risks, and multi-state operations
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, this is one of the many thing... I b- I brought this up with Dan Crenshaw the other day, and I, I talked about you. And, um, because he's, uh, against federally l- making marijuana federally legal. And I said, "Well, one of the problems with it being illegal is this." And I was explaining these grow ops that for the rest of the country where marijuana is illegal-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the vast majority... Like, what was the number that you said, the percentage that was, uh, that's grown in California that's illegally sold through the rest of the country?
- JNJohn Nores
70 to 80%.
- JRJoe Rogan
So 70 to 80%-
- JNJohn Nores
Through the whole nation.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of the entire m- marijuana population or marijuana-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... product that you're buying if you're living in place like South Dakota or where- wherever it's-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't even know if it's legal in South Dakota. Wherever it's illegal.
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're buying it from here.
- JNJohn Nores
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's because, one of the reasons is because our state laws say that, well, first of all, we're close to Mexico, so the-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... cartel members can come up really quickly.
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then the other problem is that our state laws, when we made marijuana legal recreationally here, we severely lowered the penalty for an illegal grow-op. It became a misdemeanor, correct?
- JNJohn Nores
That was the, that was the thing. You know, when, when we started the, the department's special team, the, the spec ops marijuana enforcement team that Hidden War goes into, um, part of my job is being the co-founder of that and the team leader was outreach. So I was speaking to legislative groups before we legalized under Prop 64 and then the tighter medicinal marijuana laws that, that came about that same time. Um, and I was talking to anybody, conservation groups that you and I would, you know, be part of, um, preservation animal rights groups, high school kids', you know, assemblies, right? "Watch out, you know, if you're using weed, make sure you're not (laughs) using this stuff because it's so nasty."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
Things like that. Um, and my whole point was if we're gonna regulate, guys, we see it coming, let's just regulate smart. Let's not lessen any penalties for the trespass grow that the cartels are doing on our public lands and private lands, and also the other gang groups. And there's, there's other groups, you know, to a smaller extent. Um, but unfortunately, when we did regulate, and all that was passed two years ago, they did water it down. So public-
- JRJoe Rogan
So people-
- JNJohn Nores
... land cultivation went to, like you said, a felony to a misdemeanor. And if you're a juvenile cultivator on public/private land and one of these juvenile, you know, cartel members, and there's a lot of young ones learning, it's an, it's an infraction. And that took a lot of emphasis away from that part of the problem-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JNJohn Nores
... and left us out there basically alone with a couple other agencies to fight it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, for the average person, that would sound, before you knew about the cartel grows, that would sound like a good idea.
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Well, hey, if marijuana's legal-"
- JNJohn Nores
What's the problem? Yeah.
- 22:57 – 26:04
Booby traps and field hazards: punji pits, open wells, and canine alerts
- JNJohn Nores
all, all the other threats that come with that. You know, it's not just an armed gunmen. They're putting punji pits, literally Vietnam-era punji pits on some of these trails.
- JRJoe Rogan
Explain a punji pit for people who don't know.
- JNJohn Nores
Absolutely. So back in the Vietnam conflict, what the Viet Cong would do to deter our American soldiers is they dig a pit underground on a trail. And it'd be about 18 to 20 inches deep and s- you know, square to kind of cover a whole trail. Then they'd cover it up with bamboo or leaf litter so it just looked like the trail. And then our soldiers would kind of walk and they'd step into that and here's these sharpened sticks out of bamboo that are super sharp and they're pointed upwards. So when you step into it, you're gonna shear a shin, you're gonna puncture, you know, your leg, maybe an artery. And they would put human excrement, excuse me, on the points to induce bacteria, induce infection, and basically take our soldiers, you know, out of the operation. What we started seeing in 2015 and the first one we found was actually in the national park up in Shasta County in Whiskeytown and, uh, it was a punji pit going into a grow site on a public trail. I mean, it was hundreds of yards, Joe, from the grow, but anybody could have walked in on it. We were running an operation with Shasta County and this is when we had our full-time dedicated team in the Hidden War era. Um, and our point man was about to step into this thing and our canine, Phoebe, that I'm sure, you know, we, we talked about it on Steven's show-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
... a little bit on Meat Eater and also, uh, Mike Ritland who has a, a show called Mic Drop.And he's a SEAL Team 3 veteran and canine trainer, and he really got into the dog stories, right? We talked about that. But Phoebe, amazing dog, she had been trained to sniff these banned poisons. So she could smell it, you know, a mile out with that amazing nose our canines have. And right before our point man was about to step into it, Phoebe alerted. And Brian pulled everybody back, her handler and my teammate, and sure enough, he did some digging, pulled back the tarp, and then here's this punji pit. And it had the banned toxics actually on the sticks. So what would that have done if one of us had stepped into it? So that was a real aggressive anti-personnel technique. That could have, you know, that could have decimated a- a hunter or a hiker-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
... or anybody else.
- JRJoe Rogan
Anybody.
- JNJohn Nores
So- so that was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or wildlife.
- JNJohn Nores
Or wildlife.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. Some of these pit traps for wildlife and these big, you know, wells they're digging, and cisterns, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
And they're doing this to keep people out or they're doing this for animals? Like, what are they, what are they doing this for?
- JNJohn Nores
Something like that is- has to be targeted against people. But we have- there's a lot of different things for animals too. There's a lot of things to keep animals away from the plants. They'll do, um, you know, they'll dig big pit traps that are- they'll put garbage in them or they'll use them, like, when we were in the middle of our really severe drought that we just came out of here in California a couple years ago. All these mountain streams were just bone-dry. So they would go to the lower lands when we were doing a lot of work, you know, in the Delta region of Sacramento Delta and the lowlands. And they- even if they, you know, were getting water from the delta and the raised land would dry up, they would dig- hand-dig wells 20, 30 feet deep and they leave them open and they're getting water from them and pumping out water out of the bottom. But those stay open. So yeah, our big- our big game animals drop into those or we could drop into them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus.
- JNJohn Nores
So multi- multiple hazards. Yeah, exactly.
- 26:04 – 37:44
Scale and stealth: thousands of operatives, footprint disguises, and how grows are found
- JRJoe Rogan
What is the- is there an estimate of how many cartel members are growing-
- JNJohn Nores
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
... in this country right now? W- if you say there's 27, 28 states, is that what you said?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is the- is there a rough estimate of how many cartel members are here right now doing this kind of sh- this kind of stuff?
- JNJohn Nores
You know, it- it's a real approximation because you only know based on who you catch-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
... or who you've been able to debrief. But like, in California, we know from the amount of grows w- we- we deal with every year just on the trespass, you know, cartel front, and the number of operatives it takes to run a grow and get it started and then to harvest it, I mean, conservative estimate, 10,000.
- JRJoe Rogan
10,000 people?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. I'd say conservative.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just C- just California?
- JNJohn Nores
Just in California. And- and the reason we say that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Holy shit.
- JNJohn Nores
... and I always go very conservative because it's such a kind of a silent enterprise and it's really hard to get some of this data, but we've- we've just validated it through the numbers of things we run across. You know, when you look at the fact that it takes two skilled growers that are vetted because they cut their teeth down in Mexico doing it effectively under the federale's nose, and they grow well and, uh, and- and you mentioned this when you had Mike Baker on the show, which was interesting, and you hit it on the head when you said, "Man, these guys are really resourceful, you know? You've got to respect their work ethic." And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
... and you have to, because they're- they're hiking waterline, they're hiking infrastructure in, they're covering their tracks, um, they're out there for six months at a time, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You said they were- they were walking around with carpet strapped to their feet-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... so they didn't leave footprints?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. In- in Hidden War especially, we have a whole lot of photos in that book about things we've seen on trail cameras. And they will put felt-lined- lined soft felt on their shoes, tie them up tight, and if they're walking like an old forest road, you know, that's got a gravel base, you'll never see that track.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
I mean, y- you know, you- you've tracked big game. I've done it, you know? It's the same type of technique. And if you don't have any sign, I mean, they're really good at disguising them. We actually found a guy, um, and I have a picture of this in the book and also in the PowerPoint when I- when I teach to this throughout the country, um, cow hooves actually carved out of wood because a couple years ago, we were, you know, the US Forest Service, a lot of this grow problem is on our national forests, you know, Northern California, Northeastern California, not so much Silicon Valley where I started, but the rest of the state, even down here. And, um, what these guys would do is there's cattle leases on those properties where, you know, ranchers can run cattle on part of the forest and, you know, or adjoin on private property. And we were getting tips on a bunch of grows, you know, we're either seeing them from the air or a hunter or angler would report them or we'd have a suspicion because of a waterway or we'd get- see some plants from satellite or whatever and we'd go try to find this grow and we weren't picking up tracks. And we're, you know, we- we're pretty good at finding these things now. We've been trial and erroring it for a lot- a lot of years. Um, but we're seeing a lot of cattle tracks because we're running around with cows. And sure enough, they were putting on cow hooves and strapping them on top or u- underneath their- their boots, clomping around to disguise themselves as cattle. Clever, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
And then once they get way up into a deep canyon where they're going to put their grow, they just take them off and throw them in a backpack and then the light bulb went off. W- we better look at, you know, our tracks a little more carefully.
- JRJoe Rogan
So how do you guys try to go about finding these things? Do you- do you r- rely on people reporting them or do you have, like, aerial s- surveys? Like, how do you-
- JNJohn Nores
It's- it's a mix of all of that. Um, we get a lot of reports from people on the ground and our- our best reporting parties, or what we call RPs, are hunters and anglers-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
... um, when it comes to the outdoor public, but anyone in the outdoors could run across them, but hunters and anglers especially because where do we go when we're- when we're gonna find a good water hole for elk or, you know, we're hunting black tail?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
We're gonna go, you know, we're not gonna stay on the beaten path, man. We're going to go down to the headwaters, we're going to find a pristine area where we want to get away from people. So-
- 37:44 – 43:15
Thin green line: understaffing, expanding responsibilities, and wildlife trafficking cases
- JRJoe Rogan
And you have limited resources to begin with, right?
- JNJohn Nores
Correct. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you guys are ... the, the initial job is to protect wildlife-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you're supposed to be doing that. So how much of an impact has that had on wildlife because you guys have been diverted to these illegal grow ops?
- JNJohn Nores
Exactly. Well, you know, you, you hear the term the thin green line, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JNJohn Nores
And kind of what I'm all about being a game warden and now in phase two in retirement, I'm really trying to speak more nationally to what the thin green line is. And, um, it's never been thinner. And th- the thin green line basically just represents, you know, game wardens and forest rangers, border patrol, but from the wildli- and the military, of course. But from a wildlife protector standpoint, now that we have this cartel grow problem, and you, you just hit it on the head, brother, look at the resources it takes, and all that traditional stuff that we used to do that we still do, those problems aren't going away.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
So we still have to check, you know, the night hunter. We still have to deal with commercial wildlife sales and all this, the ivory importation issue, and the wildlife trafficking that's just blowing up. So we're getting thinner and thinner and stretched further and further. Game warden numbers aren't growing very much anywhere in the country, yet the population and the impacts of people destroying wildlife, especially on this cartel front, just keep as exacerbating.
- JRJoe Rogan
You guys are in charge of ivory importation as well?
- JNJohn Nores
We deal with all that, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. We have teams now, um, in our agency, and most of the states do, called Wildlife Trafficking Teams. And it was a good program that came out of the Obama administration that all the states had to do it. We were kind of already doing it, but we had to formalize a little bit, and that was an added challenge that happened right after we formed the whole Cannabis Enforcement Program, which started with, uh, with the tactical unit that I, you know, co-formed and ran, and then all these watershed enforcement teams popped up for cannabis regulation to check the new licensed growers, people trying to do it legitimately, and water use and make sure there weren't, you know, abuses. Um, then wildlife trafficking became a huge issue. Um, the commercialization of wildlife is a huge billion dollar industry worldwide on everything from abalone to sturgeon roe to, um, black bear gallbladders, and now ivory especially, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
The black bear gall- gallbladder one is so weird.
- JNJohn Nores
Isn't it crazy? Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I ... It's, it's-
- JNJohn Nores
It's just eerie.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like a Chinese medicine thing, right?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. It's an aphrodisiac-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but it's not.
- JNJohn Nores
And it's ... No. No.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not real.
- JNJohn Nores
But-
- JRJoe Rogan
But in Albert- I think it's BC. No, in BC, uh, even though black bear hunting is legal for food, you know-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you, you can't open up the, the stomach contents.
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- 43:15 – 54:19
Early-career SoCal stories: armed spotlighting gangs and solo enforcement risks
- JNJohn Nores
Well, fortunately, 99% of them are guys like you and me that wanna see a game warden, and the game warden wants to see us. But for that one felon that's on parole and he's in the woods hiding out, and we run across that a lot, and I, I ran across a ton of that down here in SoCal-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- JNJohn Nores
... at the start of my career, and I've got some interesting stories about that. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
So guys-
- JNJohn Nores
... um-
- JRJoe Rogan
... who are like they skip bail and then they go and hide?
- JNJohn Nores
Yep. And they've got like a no-bail warrant. They're wanted on some warrant somewhere. And so they're out fishing. They have an illegal firearm, maybe they're a felon in possession of a firearm they can't even have, and now they're out in a remote area where, "No cop's gonna find me here." And then I'm the new game warden in Riverside County, you know, all fricking motivated, really green. I don't know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
... totally what I'm doing yet.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
And I'm in that truck cruising and something I got into down here that was just crazy. But I will say this, it was a heck of a learning curve and I'm, I'm really blessed it went out the way it did and it was, I was safe in it. But, um, we would get gangbangers from, from LA here and they would go over into Riverside County and get into my kind of rural, you know, foothills and on the edge of the national forest and they'd have AK-47s and they'd have, you know, automatic pistols. And they would spotlight through these canyons, gunning for everything. They'd kill rabbits, they'd kill coyotes, they'd kill deer. They'd get to the end of like a canyon that has like a, an outlet of a dam, throw a gill net out, and spend all night there just gill netting fish and hunting freely and shooting, killing everything with their spotlights. Grab their gill net, grab hundreds of fish, pack up and then head back, you know, back to the LA basin.
- JRJoe Rogan
Gangbangers?
- JNJohn Nores
I'm not kidding. And the craziest part is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Fishing gangbangers?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Commercial f- almost commercial fishing?
- JNJohn Nores
Does it, does it... It sounds nuts, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
So strange. And what would they do with the fish?
- JNJohn Nores
Oh, they'd eat them. Maybe they'd sell them. You know, who knows? Usually with quantities that big, they were getting sold. But the thing that was crazy is I would be, you know, alone. I'd be in my truck. I didn't have a K9 yet, you know, and now I just, uh, I just retired with... Well, like your Marshall, I have Apollo, yellow lab, English lab. She's amazing. Never gonna bite a bad guy, but she's gonna lick them to death and try to-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JNJohn Nores
... t- t- try to, you know, uh, turn them our way. Um, but I didn't even have a companion dog at the time. And I would go and run into these guys and go, "Okay, this is what I learned in the academy," that, you know, that, that head-on spotlighting stop that you never wanna have or getting behind them blacked out and tracking them down. Um, and next thing I know I got AKs and I got all these fricking prohibited exotic weapons and I'm going, "This is crazy. I'm pulling these guys out alone. I don't have a lot of backup."
- JRJoe Rogan
So it was just you?
- JNJohn Nores
It was just me.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many guys did you run into?
- JNJohn Nores
Sometimes it would be two. One night I pulled like eight people out of a van.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, shit.
- JNJohn Nores
A- and I was alone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, shit.
- JNJohn Nores
And they were all armed and it was one of my heaviest, most intense cases and I had been on one year. So this was 1994 and what we were doing in the Riverside squad is we were just saturating the area 'cause we were getting everybody from over on the LA side here spotlighting all our game. So we're like, "Okay, let's saturate this." And back then, Joe, the game was to catch a spotlighter red-handed 'cause they're so deliberate and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Explain spotlight to-
- 54:19 – 57:32
Policy and the “magic wand”: staffing, pay equity, and the role of public awareness
- JRJoe Rogan
If I could give you a magic wand-
- JNJohn Nores
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you could ... Like, I could say, "John, it's up to you. Fix all this." How do you do it?
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have unlimited resources.
- JNJohn Nores
Man, that's a great question. And I'll, I'll, I'll do go into the bottle of the genie right here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JNJohn Nores
One, we put more game wardens in the field 'cause we do need more and we pay them better. And here's the rub. Because there's this perception that game wardens just check fishing licenses or they might not be real cops, we're paid about 40% less than a county sheriff.... than a highway patrolman-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- JNJohn Nores
... than a city police guy, right. And the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Because of p- you think it's because of perception, really?
- JNJohn Nores
Uh, eh, perception and public lack of knowledge, perhaps. Now, that is starting to-
- JRJoe Rogan
So as far as funds get allocated, they say, "Well, ga- game wardens, come on."
- JNJohn Nores
Right, right. This is the going rate, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JNJohn Nores
This is what we've always paid, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- JNJohn Nores
... the raises are-
- JRJoe Rogan
40%.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah, yeah, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's horrible.
- JNJohn Nores
We're in a con- we're in a constant, constant salary equity fight. Um, we've been, we've been, you know, really pushing that for, you know, 15 years, plus or minus. Um, something that really started to legitimize us and, um, in, in 2010 when my first book came out, War in the Woods, that's when, um, the Wild Justice game warden reality show on National Geographic Channel aired for the first time, and that was our agency. And that was the first of what are now a lot of game warden shows, and the more the merrier 'cause it's crazy-
- JRJoe Rogan
I've never seen that one.
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wild Justice? Is it good?
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah, it was- i- it's good, yeah. It was, uh, it was, it was us, you know, so I'm partial, you know, but it's California-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but is it mostly busting people for wildlife or is it you get to the marijuana stuff too?
- JNJohn Nores
It's we- do actually get into the marijuana stuff. Something the Wild Justice film crews really resonated with and a lot of the guys that are on the team now, myself included, ended up being featured like their main people for the better part of like three seasons. Because we weren't just bringing them the poaching cases, the traditional stuff which needed to get shown, even th- and we didn't have our formalized team yet, but I was embedded with Santa Clara County. Brian and K-9 Phoebe were up in Shasta, but we were getting brought together for the show and he was starting to work down with me in the Bay Area and bringing that wonder dog, Phoebe, into the mix that he had honed, you know, o- for years. Um, and we started to show this cartel marijuana stuff through the show, and that's what got the ratings. That's what, you know, that was worldwide broadcast, a number one hit on Nat Geo for three years. And that opened the door, you know. We needed that exposure and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JNJohn Nores
... it's the same thing with like writing these books and doing the TV I do. It's- it's a fine line between risking some exposure or getting the message out. And like I said, we're so thin on the thin green line, we need all the exposure we can get. We're a little agency, our funding's limited, but we're doing a multitude of jobs even outside of the marijuana stuff. So that started to help, and now we're starting to get the recognition of the professionalism and the capabilities we have, especially with this tactical unit, um, to hopefully help with things like salary and numbers.
- 57:32 – 1:32:00
Regulation, black markets, and border realities: misdemeanors, DAs, and panga boats
- JRJoe Rogan
So i- has there been discussion, like, has anybody brought this up? Like, uh, Dan Crenshaw was not aware of this when I discussed it with him when he was talking about federally legalizing marijuana-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that it's not just about saying it's okay for kids-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but it's a- d- it's about mitigating these problems that you have with cartels-
- JNJohn Nores
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because when there is, uh, an illegal opportunity to sell th- something-
- JNJohn Nores
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that there's a demand for, then the criminals are gonna sell it.
- JNJohn Nores
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's what you have now.
- JNJohn Nores
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and has there been discussion, like, does someone to bring this up, like, this is one of the primary problems with having marijuana federally illegal, with California having it state legal, that there is this massive confusion and this, you know, diminishing of penalties in California-
- JNJohn Nores
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with growing illegally?
- JNJohn Nores
There totally is, and you know, you got the opposite ends of the spectrum, and, and here's what we're learning with regulation. And I've always said this, I said, "Look, if we're gonna regulate, and we need to regulate to stop this black market, let's do it smart." You know, let's for one, everything we, we, we really tried to push here in California was regulate legitimate cannabis the correct way, keep people safe, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Test it.
- JNJohn Nores
Test it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Make sure those pesticides, the cartel pesticides aren't on it.
- JNJohn Nores
Absolutely, man. And as long as people aren't hurting themselves or other people, they're not destroying waterways, we're not getting in gunfights over it, great, you know, no problem. But for like the, you know, the outdoor trespassing with these cartels, let's take that funding and put more effort into stopping that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JNJohn Nores
You know, let's not water it down to misdemeanors and infractions and do things like that. And, and you know, it's- an- and even- l- we can even take cannabis out of the equation, Joe, from the standpoint of- I remember a few years ago I was quoted by the Associated Press of saying, "If cherry tomatoes were so desired on the black market and were illegal, and people were paying $4,000 a pound for cherry tomatoes, we'd be having gunfights over cherry tomatoes and having banned poisons on cherry tomatoes that our kids would be eating in their salads, you know, because of the black market." So you can take, you know, cannabis even out of the equation and look at the environmental impacts-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- JNJohn Nores
... and look at the public safety, but we have to do something to regulate this thing uniformly over the bo- uh, across the board, and we have to break the black market. But what I've seen, and I go into the last chapter of my new book, Hidden War, extensively on this is, what are the challenges moving forward after seeing regulation in play for two years? Boots on the ground watching it and having a great relationship with legi- with legitimate cannabis growers. And I'll tell you a few stories that really opened my eyes and, and got us unified, right? 'Cause the whole thing is we need to be unified on this, on this concept. Not polarized left or right, anti-cannabis, pro-cannabis. Let's get unified on environmental safety, public safety, all of it. Um, but because of how we've regulated and the licensing fees and the protocol and everything else, we've had all of these, you know, black market growers in the 215 days that wanted to get legal and saw everything coming and the cost to do it and being on Big Brother's radar or law enforcement's radar, and they backed out. Like in Humboldt County, we had like, I wanna say in the better part of 10 to 50,000 growers ready to regulate, and we barely got 1,000. You know, and they went, "You know, I can't afford to go through this permitting process. I can't afford the delays, so I'm just gonna go back on the black market. I'm not gonna be on the radar."
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- JNJohn Nores
And that has to stop if we're gonna regulate, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JNJohn Nores
Um-The thing that was re- was really interesting, and, uh, I- I never saw this coming, but when- when we were about to roll out Prop 64 and, you know, it had been voted, uh, for recreational and- and the medical laws were tightening up, I was the first law enforcement guy, being from a marijuana enforcement team, to, uh, to go into these, uh, California Grower Association hosted grower meetings. And my first one was in Santa Cruz, right over the hill from my place, right? And I mean, I'm in the, you know, I'm in the BDUs, the camo bottoms, the polo, I'm going in, in my, you know, my training attire for MET, and the look on 500 growers' faces when I walked into that meeting, just like, "What's he doing here? Conflict of interest. He's working us." These are guys watching our license plates, and I'm just like, "Guys, everybody breathe. I'm gonna tell you a story. I'm gonna show you a PowerPoint. It's gonna be graphic. I'm not here to work anybody, you know? I'm here to unify. Just hear what I have to say. No judgment." And so I was on- Were these guys aware of how big the situation was before you showed them that? I would have thought so because it- they're in the industry, right? Yes. They know weed better than just about anybody. I would- Yeah, they're high all the time. (laughs) They're not seeing the cartel. They're just look- (laughs) They're not paying attention. They're just growing pot. Yeah, that's all. I- I didn't see that guy. Was that kind of trail camera? Why's he got a backpack of, like, 300 pounds of pipe? Yeah. But anyway, um- That did explain that. I mean, these guys- Yeah. ... literally would back in hundreds and hundreds of yards- Yeah. ... of pipe and of- Yeah. ... uh, tubing, like for hoses on their back. Oh, they're tough. Yeah, I've got- I've got photos in the new book on trail cam with felt on their feet covering their tracks with these seabags, 100-plus pounds and a spool of pipe going up, man, like- People don't know how hard that is to do. I mean, if these- It's hard. ... guys just took a legit job- Yeah. ... they'd be like the best employees you'd ever have. Oh, they would. They would, man. They're, uh, they're tough. And they're, I mean, to look at the environment they live in for six months, man. Yeah. They're all outdoors. But I was at this meeting and, uh, I gave the presentation, I talked about it, and it was crazy to see the look of shock on these, um, these grower groups' faces. I mean, some women were in tears. Um, some of the guys were just like pissed off and pumping their fists and they're like, "That's bullshit. We are not about that. We're not about doing anything bad with our water. We like our wildlife. We just wanna grow cannabis. We want to be regulated." You know? And it was such a turnaround, you know, from the traditional relationship between law enforcement and the cannabis world, um, and to s- to be the one guy there with all of the growing community there and then go from complete horror that I was there as an adversary or judgment or anything of that or, you know, to- to do anything negative from an enforcement standpoint to suddenly having real talks of what was going out and- and I could kinda see the authenticity, the genuineness on some of their faces, the way they reacted to my slides, to the videos. And so, um, when I left that first meeting, I remember I just got flooded in my patrol truck and I had Apollo with me, my little lab, and she's an icebreaker. I thought, "Well, could be an interesting meeting. I should have the dog for pets, you know?" And she jumped in and I, uh, all these growers were coming to my truck and I'm packing up my stuff and I'm going, "Wow, this is weird." And it was all these, you know, farmer supervisors, um, from all over the state. You know, Mendocino County, up in the Emerald Triangle, Santa Cruz, and they're just giving me their cards and going, "Hey, Lieutenant, I have workers, I have resources. We will hike in and clean up a grow with you. Let us help the MET team, let us help the cannabis program. Whatever we can do and no-" Well, that's great. "... no charge." And- and that was genuine, man. I- I was really, really taken back by that in a positive way and I realized if we get the legitimate farmers on our side and they're aware of this, they will help market that message. They- Also they have money. And they have money. Yeah. Yeah. And they- I mean, the legitimate farmers are making a lot of money. That would be- Yeah. ... a great way for- Yeah. ... you know, we, I mean, tax-wise, if we, I mean, there's extremely high taxes- Right. ... on cannabis as it is. Right. But if we could allocate that taxes- Absolutely. ... to you guys- Yeah. ... that- that would be incredible. Yeah. I mean, where's the money going? Let's have a certain percentage of it designated for wardens. That's starting to happen too because what's, now that we've had a couple of years and we're seeing some of the regulatory funding and the taxes trickle back, um, I'm in contact with my team all the time, I still get to see them periodically and train and do things like that, and really give them a shout-out for all the amazing, you know, risks they're taking and the work they're doing and- and promote their message of what they're out there doing. But, um, the money's starting to come back to us now. Now- So we're starting to get equipment, we're starting to get more bodies, we're starting to get, like, overtime funding so the ridiculous long hours, um, our small team works, they're compensated for. That just- just happened literally, you know, within a month or two of- of being on the show with you. So- Gotta get- ... we're seeing some positives from that. Gotta get those rates raised. We're trying. Yeah, I mean, that's- We're trying. Alert the press. 40% is disgusting. Hey, this, uh, this coffee's awesome, by the way. Pretty damn good. Oh my gosh. Shout-out to Laird Hamilton. Laird Hamilton, man. (laughs) I'm not even a coffee drinker and I'm loving this stuff. (laughs) It's great stuff. It- I'm a convert now. ... makes your mouth smack though. Gives you a little... (smacks lips) It does, a little (smacks lips) Yeah, a little- You gotta like ... (clears throat) Gotta clear your throat a lot. Yeah. (laughs) It's that coconut oil and turmeric and all that jazz. Um- Healthy. Yeah. D- Colorado was the first state to legalize it and Washington state. Yeah. Do they have similar problems? They still have a black market, you know, and- and the thing right now because we're not regulating federally and so every state, anything that's grown stays in that state per law, right? Mm-hmm. But every, all the demand is back east in these non-regulated states- Right. ... where they don't grow it, so Colorado has a, you know, an interstate black market that's done by the, you know, quasi-legitimate growers as well as the cartel element. So there's still that black market thriving within, you know, the black market cannabis industry that isn't cartel public lands. We- we've got different mixes and we've got different- Okay, so it's a different kind of a problem in Colorado. So they don't have as many cartel grows? Not as many. They have some. Mm-hmm. They have some. I've- I've- I've talked to those guys and worked with them a little bit and they do have some, but again, they're kinda like where I'm at in Montana now. Tight little growing window, you know, early winters, late thaws, so they don't have a very big growing season outdoors. The c- the conditions aren't prime like they are here in Cali. This, uh, this is a giant issue that is largely undiscussed and it's one of the reasons why I was so fascinated by that podcast, is the- Yeah. ... and this is, uh, one more-
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