It all started with a long hike down a part of the trail I had never seen before.
I do a lot of hiking and walking through nature parks and preserves.
I thought I had seen them all, but then a Google map showed me something I had missed. It was farther away than I normally drove, but I was curious. When I saw that the local police had advised hikers to avoid the area due to “aggressive wildlife” I was even more intrigued. I like a little bit of danger! It turns out the police were lying, and there wasn’t a wildlife problem in the area, there was a cannabis problem. There were some criminals that had started growing cannabis plants around the woods in that area, and these were fearsome and violent men. The cops were trying to warn people away, knowing these criminals might protect their cannabis crops with force. I didn’t know that at the time, of course, so I was genuinely surprised to find a huge patch of cannabis plants in the woods. At first I was excited because I thought these were wild-growing marijuana plants. Once I looked closer I saw how all the cannabis plants were in neat rows, well organized, and some even had red tags around the bases. I realized this was someone’s cannabis field, and that they probably wouldn’t like me helping myself. But how could they know if I just took a little? Before I started plucking cannabis buds off the stems, I looked up and saw that a drone was hovering above, watching me with a camera. So I ran away!