Swapping dollars

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Santa Barbara County is losing its cannabis enforcement team. 

That’s one way to save $3 million! 

Apparently illegal cannabis activities in the county have declined significantly since 2018, when the Sheriff’s Office Cannabis Compliance Team first started ripping through illegal grows, weed whacking, bagging, and confiscating all things pot. 

I remember the images that the county law enforcement agency used to send out to all the news outlets when bragging about the biggest illegal cannabis busts in county history! Those days are over. 

And so are the days of county tax rolls flush with legal cannabis tax revenue, according to both county staff and a recent grand jury report. 

Since the 2020-21 fiscal year’s high of $15.7 million in weed taxes, the amount of dough pulled into county coffers from cannabis has steadily declined. Fiscal year 2025-26 is expected to generate roughly $5.5 million as costs for compliance and enforcement slowly increase. In 2020-21 that cost was $2.7 million, and in 2025-26, it was expected to be $3.3 million, according to the grand jury.

But that’s changing thanks to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, which opted to defund the police! Well, not all the police. Just the law enforcement that targeted illicit marijuana grows and sales in the county. There isn’t enough black market activity to warrant paying for a special enforcement team anymore, according to 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino.

“It’s not that the sheriff’s department was doing anything wrong,” he said. “The landscape has just changed over seven years, and we need to put resources where they’re most required.” 

But don’t worry, all you scofflaws out there, the Sheriff’s Office will continue its due diligence in rooting out the bad guys. Sheriff Bill Brown said his department will continue investigating, citing, and arresting “those who break the law by illicitly growing manufacturing, possessing for sale, or trafficking marijuana.” 

Instead of funding law enforcement, some of that saved cannabis money will be funding therapists at the Immigrant Legal Defense Center to help those dealing with deportation threats or deported family members. 

Second District Supervisor Laura Capps proposed the quarter of a million dollar allocation because she learned there was a backlog of people who wanted help and couldn’t get it. One of her examples is a 5-year-old citizen whose mom is in deportation proceedings right now. 

Some of North County’s staunchest MAGA conservatives are positively enraged. Defunding police and helping immigrants! How dare we do such a thing? 

Lavagnino said he got at least one negative comment from a constituent who said they were a taxpayer and didn’t support the decision. The money isn’t coming from the county’s property, sales, or transient occupancy tax, Lavagnino said. It’s coming from growers. It’s an “ingenious” way to support local immigrant families “while staying in our lane,” he added.

“Theses kids are caught up in a situation they didn’t create,” he said. 

That’s for sure. If you’re upset about kids getting help, then maybe you need help. I don’t think there’s a compliance team for that yet, but maybe it’s time to create one.

The Canary is dreaming of more cannabis revenue. Send funding ideas to canary@santamariasun.com.

This article appears in Jul 3-10, 2025.