The rise of the nature cop

LAST SUMMER, Siskiyou County’s recently appointed sheriff, Jeremiah LaRue, released a video on YouTube to explain two controversial new county groundwater laws. The drought was severe that year, he said, and the “wasteful extraction” of water for illegal cannabis cultivation was making it worse. LaRue appeared in front of a green-screen projection of iconic Mount Shasta, like a news anchor, while stock photos of cannabis plants, armed men and helicopters punctuated his talking points. The new water laws would ban the delivery of groundwater to cannabis farms, in what LaRue described as the most effective strategy to stop “violent crime draining our water and polluting our environment.”

The environmentalist rhetoric and talk that he needed better “tools” — criminal penalties — to deal with “environmental crimes.”