GARBERVILLE, Calif. — When Johnny Casali was a teenager growing weed illegally in the mountains of Northern California, there was always the risk the government would ruin everything — that his plants would be discovered and ripped up, or that he would be discovered and locked up.
In the 1990s, dozens of federal agents raided his family's Humboldt County farm, and Casali spent eight years in federal prison.
Today, weed is legal in the state and Casali grows it openly on his family farm. Law enforcement helicopters don't fly over as often, and there's not much risk of another raid.
