The home state of the Philadelphia Trumpet is in the midst of a gold rush. It enables hardworking, blue-collar workers to hang up the long hours of their manual labor jobs and clock in for an easy living. It’s a new American dream that many of us have seen personally, often with its own seven-leaf icon.

In mid-2018, Oklahoma had zero marijuana-growing licenses and zero marijuana sales locations. Six years later, it has granted thousands of $2,500 licenses (14,000 at the peak) and has more retail marijuana stores than Colorado, Oregon and Washington combined. California (population 39 million) has 1,244 dispensaries; Oklahoma (population 4 million) has 2,683.

The rush is on.

Oklahoma voters voted yes to State Question 788 on June 25, 2018, which led to the legalization of marijuana for “medical” use. It made Oklahoma the 30th state to approve some form of medical marijuana. But as a Scripps news report at the time said, “unlike many other states, Oklahoma’s law doesn’t specify medical conditions the drug is approved for—doctors can prescribe marijuana for any condition.”

The law says patients with licenses can keep up to 8 ounces of marijuana in their home—enough for roughly 480 joints—and carry 3 ounces with them. They can also possess up to 12 marijuana plants. In one growth cycle of 60 to 90 days, 12 plants can produce roughly 5,040 joints’ worth of the drug. This law effectively legalized recreational marijuana in Oklahoma.

At the same time, another trend has been taking place that might at first seem unrelated.

Land Grab

In a Sept. 23, 2023, hearing about the situation in Oklahoma, Sen. James Lankford observed that the year after the state passed this marijuana law, “Oklahoma had more land sales to foreign entities than any other state in the nation.”

Not far from the Trumpet’s offices, the properties you drive by and see in the distance are owned not by Oklahomans or even Americans, but by foreigners with foreign motives.

Foreigners are seizing an opportunity—an opportunity to do what?

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics states that 75 percent of licensed grow facilities are Chinese-owned. It estimates that Chinese entities now own more than 1 million acres for growing illegal marijuana. This means that much of the time, the state government isn’t even getting its cut. In some cases, state inspectors have been turned away from these foreign-owned properties by Asian men carrying firearms.

Chinese Mafia

The people living and working on these properties and in these grow-houses are, at this very moment, suffering slave-like conditions, human trafficking and sex trafficking.

And there is an unending supply of victims. Many people in these situations came across America’s open southern border. Last year, at least 24,000 Chinese crossed the border illegally, more than the previous 10 years combined.

One infamous example from 2022 hints at what is going on. Just a 45-minute drive from the Trumpet’s campus, four Chinese workers on a 10-acre marijuana farm in Kingfisher County were murdered by Wu Chen. The perpetrator was arrested in Florida and extradited to Oklahoma. He was terrified of going to prison in this state because “the Chinese mafia has a large presence in Oklahoma.”

When Oklahomans voted for marijuana, they were also voting for foreign-owned land, gangs, human trafficking, sex trafficking, fentanyl, ketamine, violence and murder.

It potently illustrates the unintended, far-reaching consequences of giving in to self-destructive pulls and vices.

America has never suffered such a dangerous foreign threat within its borders. But God said this would happen. He inspired the Prophet Isaiah to write a song—recorded in Isaiah 5—that characterizes the United States and other modern descendants of the ancient Israelites as a vineyard. God planted, cared for and created a protective hedge around the vineyard and labored to help it produce fruit and give it the best chance to succeed.

But look at our fruits. Because of our rebellion against Him and our wicked lifestyles, including lifestyles we literally voted for, God says in this prophecy that He will remove His protection. “… I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: And I will lay it waste …” (verses 5-6).

Threats are now pouring over, across and through the hedge. And now, here in the center of the nation, Oklahomans can see the threat from China firsthand.