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Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, Adelanto, California, a small town in the

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Speaker 1: Mojave Desert, was so broke there was talk of dissolving

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Speaker 1: itself completely. Then along came John Bug Woodard Junior, a

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Speaker 1: sixty three year old, gun toting conservative hippie who had

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Speaker 1: a wild idea to save Adelanto.

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Speaker 2: If I got an old Google, I did a little googling,

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Speaker 2: and I found out the secret.

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Speaker 1: The secret, according to Bug via Google, was cannabis.

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Speaker 2: I've heard those cannabis shops make a lot of money.

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Speaker 1: Bug's plan was to make Adelanto the first city in

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Speaker 1: California to legalize commercial cannabis cultivation, which it turns out

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Speaker 1: is a very difficult and complicated thing to pull off.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to overstate how much risk skier, and more

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Speaker 3: dangerous the cannabis industry is because of the inconsistency between

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Speaker 3: federal and state law.

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Speaker 1: But still Bug persistent and his idea started to catch

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Speaker 1: on with the rest of the city.

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Speaker 2: The wheels are in motion. Ain't nobody getting in a way.

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Speaker 2: I don't care if you're in the sheriff. I don't

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Speaker 2: care if you're the governor. I don't care who you are.

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Speaker 1: What started as a simple solution to revive this small

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Speaker 1: town would lead to a series of backroom dealings and

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Speaker 1: a shocking scandal that would spread far beyond the city limits.

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Speaker 1: I knew the cannabis was going to become just absolutely

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Speaker 1: a fucking battleground for the wealthy.

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Speaker 2: I've seen that deffel bag of money come in and

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Speaker 2: it didn't go to the bank.

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Speaker 1: Adelanto is a Spanish word that means progress, but Adelanto, California,

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Speaker 1: has a history of outsiders with big plans that often

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Speaker 1: seem too good to be true, and of its leaders

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Speaker 1: taking advantage of the citizens and ending up on the

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Speaker 1: wrong side of the law.

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Speaker 4: To developing news, the FBI served several search warrants this

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Speaker 4: morning in Adelanto. According to the Victor Valley Daily Press,

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Speaker 4: agents raided city hall and the mayor's home.

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Speaker 1: This is the story of what happens when citizens decide

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Speaker 1: they've had enough and take matters into their own hands.

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Speaker 3: I didn't have a choice but to get up and

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Speaker 3: to fight. We got up and it got to work.

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Speaker 1: Let's go. I'm David Weinberg, and this is dream Town,

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Speaker 1: the story of Adelanto from Crooked Media, coming June seventh,

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts