NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO • March 24, 2024
About half of U.S. states have now legalized recreational use of marijuana, and that has led to an explosion of pot farms in states with cheap land and cheap labor. And many are using workers from China. The workers say they were trafficked to these farms, prevented from leaving and never paid. They're part of a new pipeline of vulnerable Chinese migrants trying to escape China and who are now streaming into the U.S., and they're ending up at at least hundreds of Chinese-run marijuana farms that have popped up nationwide from California to Maine.