NBC’s Jacob Soboroff Discovers Ties Between Marijuana Industry And ‘Modern Day Slaves’

With marijuana use legalized in two thirds of American states, it’s perhaps tempting to believe that a legal product has been produced legally, but NBC’s Jacob Soboroff discovered the business for black market pot growers is booming, and they’ve turned to the victims of human trafficking to produce their crop. “What law enforcement tells us is that Chinese organized crime has gotten involved,” Soboroff told me. “Marijuana that people might be smoking or eating or drinking may have been cultivated by people who are doing it under duress as human trafficking victims, or as you know, DHS defines it: modern day slaves.”

For his special report, “Captives of Cannabis,” debuting Friday night at 10:30 p.m. ET on NBC News Now, Soboroff rode with a special team from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department on a raid of a black market marijuana farm in the California desert. “It's hard to comprehend until you get out there to the Mojave Desert, and see scores of people living in trailers, and going into greenhouses literally in the middle of the middle of the desert,” Soboroff told me.

While many of the people living in squalor refused to identify themselves as victims of human trafficking, seven victims did speak to Soboroff. “Obviously, human trafficking is a huge problem,” he said. “But I had no idea that it was it was this pervasive in in marijuana.”

Law enforcement believes the use of human trafficking victims is widespread—and the marijuana these victims help produce may in fact end up on the shelves of legal dispensaries across the country.

MORE FOR YOU

Soboroff’s reporting on the link between human trafficking and marijuana production first aired in a pair of exclusive stories on NBC Nightly News, but he says he’s grateful to have the ability to tell an even deeper story on the network’s streaming platform. “For me, it’s huge because it adds so much more to the story. To go out and to spend six months working on something and to to only show people six minute minutes of it would be a shame,” he told me.

While the reach of Nightly News is massive, he enjoys the engagement that he gets with viewers who settle in for the longer stories he can tell on platforms like NBC News Now. “We're reaching people in ways we've never reached before, and having conversations that we were never able to have before with people we were never able to talk to you before. And this type of content is a prime example,” he told me. “At least for me as a journalist who likes to get out there and see things for myself, that’s what I want to be doing.”

Soboroff points to his 2017 documentary on fentanyl, “One Nation, Overdosed,” which was published on YouTube, and has accumulated 2.3 million views and nearly 5,000 comments. “It's young people, and they're having a conversation,” Soboroff told me, noting that the story has created an ongoing discussion that remains active five years later. “I still hear from people today who say, you know, I just saw ‘One Nation, Overdosed’ on YouTube.”

As his new documentary, produced by Nightly News Films for NBC News Now, prepares for its debut Friday night, Soboroff was back on broadcast TV, filling in as the news reader this morning on NBC’s Today, another part of the NBC franchise that has its own huge—but different—audience.

“I feel like I can be myself, tell the stories that interest me,” he said. “This place just lets you flex different muscles, different parts of your brain. And I think, most importantly, I just feel like I'm gonna be myself here, which is a dream come true and work with people I really care about.”

View the rest of the story here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aileen Cannon—Judge Hearing Trump’s Documents Case—Reportedly Made ‘Significant’ Mistakes In June Trial

Topline U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s trial for retaining White House documents, made “key errors” during a criminal trial in a separate case earlier this summer, Reuters reports , raising additional questions about the Trump-appointed judge’s credibility as she prepares to oversee the ex-president’s May 2024 trial. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, then a nominee for the position, speaks remotely during a ... [+] Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing on July 29, 2020, in Washington. Associated Press Key Facts Cannon presided over a trial in June for defendant William Spearman, who was facing charges of child exploitation and advertising and distributing child pornography. The judge refused to allow members of the public, including Spearman’s family members, into the courtroom during jury selection, according to a court transcript reported by Reuters, citing a lack of space in the courtroom, de
Read more

POV: Researchers often undercount how much visual misinformation is on Facebook

How much misinformation is on Facebook? Several studies have found that the amount of misinformation on Facebook is  low  or that the problem has  declined   over   time . This previous work, though, missed most of the story. We are a  communications researcher , a  media and public affairs researcher , and a  founder of a digital intelligence company . We conducted a study that shows that  massive amounts of misinformation have been overlooked  by other studies. The biggest source of misinformation on Facebook is not links to fake news sites but something more basic: images. And a large portion of posted pictures are misleading. For instance, on the eve of the 2020 election, nearly one out of every four political image posts on Facebook contained misinformation. Widely shared falsehoods included QAnon conspiracy theories, misleading statements about the Black Lives Matter movement, and unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Visual misinformation by the numbers
Read more

10 Best End of the World Love Stories From TV and Movies

From the unforgettable The Walking Dead television series to the record-breaking The Last of Us show inspired by the popular video game, people love dystopian-apocalypse TV and movies. Even more than that, viewers love a romance against the tragic backdrop of the end of the world. RELATED: ' Knock at the Cabin' and 9 Other Small-Scale Apocalyptic Movies Throughout the years there have been just as many iconic couples in apocalyptic media as there has been apocalyptic media. From Rick and Michonne to Bill and Frank, there’s a meant-to-be couple to swoon over in between those nail-biting moments of anticipation while watching a dystopian movie or show. COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAY 10 Penny and Dodge, 'Seeking a Friend for the End of the World' (2012) Image via Focus Features A seemingly mismatched couple who find each other as the world is facing impending destruction by asteroid, Penny ( Kiera Knightley ) and her neighbor Dodge ( Steve Carrell ) begin to travel
Read more