cannabisnews.com: Marijuana War Smolders On U.S. Public Lands










  Marijuana War Smolders On U.S. Public Lands

Posted by CN Staff on November 04, 2003 at 17:42:52 PT
By Sean Markey  
Source: National Geographic 

Under a blistering sun, the unit files silently through the forest's steep ridges and deep canyons. The 14 men wear woodland camouflage, carry assault rifles, and whisper into radio headsets. Their quarry: a small band of armed insurgents tending a million-dollar backcountry marijuana garden for international drug traffickers. The setting for this recent skirmish in the war on drugs may sound like some faraway South American jungle. 
But the raid, led by law enforcement officers of the United States Forest Service and a Shasta County Sheriff's Office S.W.A.T. team, took place earlier this summer along the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, a two-million-acre (800,000-hectare) backcountry in northern California 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of the Oregon border. The sweep was one in a series of drug interdictions that has become routine for the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Forest Service. In the past eight years, the agency has found itself in an ongoing battle with Mexican drug-trafficking organizations that investigators say have moved across the border to carve networks of clandestine marijuana plantations into national forests and other public lands deep inside U.S. territory. Agents estimate the street value of marijuana planted on national forests in California alone exceeds one billion dollars (U.S.) a year. "It's an epidemic," said Laura Mark, a 25-year Forest Service veteran and assistant special agent in charge of drug investigations in California. "National forests and public lands are literally being taken over by drug trafficking organizations for the production of marijuana," said Mark, who is based in Nevada City, California. The Forest Service faces a brazen and determined foe in Mexican drug cartels. Traffickers smuggle hundreds of undocumented Mexican workers; tons of agricultural equipment, pesticides, fertilizer, and food; and illegal weapons into backcountry garden sites during the four- to five-month growing season from early spring to late September and early October. Agents say the crisis has strained a law enforcement agency grappling with an aging workforce, understaffing, and budget pressures.  Billion-Dollar Industry National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service lands and other state, federal, and private acreage from Hawaii to Kentucky have become hosts to an increasing share of the illegal gardens. But no public land management agency has been more heavily impacted than the Forest Service, and nowhere is the problem more acute than in California. Networks of backcountry fire and logging roads, rich soil, abundant sun, and reliable water sources provide drug traffickers easy access and ideal growing conditions on the relatively secluded Forest Service lands in the state. Since 1997, the agency has eradicated seven million pounds (three million kilograms) of marijuana grown in California national forests, according to Dan Bauer, a Forest Service senior special agent based in Washington, D.C., and the agency's national program coordinator for counter-drug operations. In 2001, Forest Service agents uprooted 495,000 plants worth an estimated U.S. $1.8 billion from national forests in the state. Last year, over 420,000 plants worth $1.5 billion were seized. "If we're lucky, that's probably a third of what's being grown out there," Jerry Moore, the Forest Service's top law enforcement officer in California, said of last year's haul. This year, drug cartels appear to have grown another bumper crop, investigators say. While final counts have yet to be tallied, Mark, the Forest Service's regional drug investigator, estimates close to 400,000 marijuana plants were seized on national forest lands in California in the 2003 season.  Uphill BattleIn the Western U.S., marijuana cultivation represents one of the most serious law enforcement issues the Forest Service has faced in its 98-year history. The battle comes at a time when many officers say staff and resources for the agency's law enforcement arm are stretched thin, competing with fire fighting and resource management initiatives within the broader, 34,700-employee agency for public attention and funds. Across the U.S., there are roughly 640 law enforcement officers and special agents that police the country's 191.6 million acres (77.5 million hectares) of national forests. Special agents investigate serious crimes, including arson, fire, timber theft, and drug production. Officers actively assist those cases while tackling daily patrol duties that range from campground disturbances to backcountry rescues and forest resource uses. In California, 130 officers and agents patrol nearly 25 million acres (10 million hectares) of backcountry spread among 18 national forests, an area equal to nearly one-fifth of the entire state. "We're fighting a huge fight with just a small amount of people," said Denese Stokes, a 29-year Forest Service employee and the sole special agent for drug investigations on four national forests covering 3.5 million acres (5,470 square miles) in southern California. Together with Ken Harp, a patrol captain in San Bernardino National Forest, Stokes paused from a months-long surveillance of suspected drug cartel operatives earlier this summer to drive a visiting reporter through the mountains of San Bernardino National Forest southeast of Los Angeles, past rugged canyons and ridges both said were thick with illegal marijuana crops. Stokes said 25,000 to 50,000 marijuana plants are rooted out of the rugged backcountry each year. The fact highlights a key dilemma facing the Forest Service: While officers and agents often know areas actively cultivated by growers, identifying specific garden sites requires expensive aerial reconnaissance. And hiking into the backcountry to raid and remove cannabis plantations during the hot summer months is arduous and time consuming—not to mention dangerous. "We have eight people in this [state] that are dedicated to drug enforcement," said Harp. "This one cartel has 60 or 80." Harp, a 33-year Forest Service veteran, oversees patrol operations for the 700,000-acre (280,000-hectare) forest that receives six million visitors annually with a staff of five. Stokes concedes that the frustration level can be overwhelming. "Everybody wants to get the job done," she said. "Everybody is working, giving 200 percent, and it's like we're just running into brick walls. We just don't have the manpower."  Deadly Season Cannabis and profits reaped from national forests are not the only concern for law enforcement. Growers have increasingly armed themselves with high-caliber assault rifles, shotguns, and other firearms. During the June raid on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest garden, for example, agents seized AK-15 and SKS assault rifles with military-style, double-stacked ammo clips. "There's not a type of gun that we haven't found," said Mark. Law enforcement officers and agents say hikers, hunters, and other backcountry users have been chased away at gunpoint after stumbling into marijuana gardens. Tensions mount in late September and early October when the peak marijuana harvest season coincides with hunting season. In early October, two deer hunters pressing into the backcountry of the Los Padres National Forest outside Ojai reported shots fired at them by marijuana farmers. Law enforcement officers who raid marijuana gardens face even greater risks. "Growers used to drop their guns and run," said Brian Adams, an officer on the Sequoia National Forest roughly 120 miles (190 kilometers) north of Los Angeles. "Now some are starting to stand their ground." In September, the trend took a fatal turn over the span of one deadly week when law enforcement officers shot and killed four marijuana growers of Mexican citizenship in two separate incidents in Shasta and Butte counties. The growers leveled assault rifles as authorities raided gardens growing adjacent to national forest lands. Investigators say the plots were run by Mexican drug trafficking organizations. During the same month, Roberta Wright, an officer on the Los Padres National Forest, was among a multi-agency law enforcement team that was fired upon with a shotgun while raiding a garden in the Los Padres National Forest in San Luis Obispo County. The violence has yet to approach the levels once seen during the early 1980s when booby traps, warning shots, and shootouts among mostly white, independent growers and law enforcement officers were not uncommon. But Forest Service officers and agents say they find the high-power firearms and escalating violence disturbing. Moore, the top Forest Service law enforcement officer in California, said it's only a matter of time before a law enforcement officer gets seriously injured or killed. "Every year the stakes keep going up," he said. Sidebar: Marijuana GardensMarijuana growers find nearly ideal growing conditions and ready cover in the backcountry of California's national forests. During winter months, scouts walk remote canyons and ridges in search of secluded places with nearby high-mountain streams or springs that can serve as suitable marijuana garden sites. At the outset of the four- to five-month growing season from early spring to late September and early October, drug traffickers haul tons of food and agricultural supplies, including fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation hoses into backcountry garden sites. Gardens are tended by small bands of laborers, many brought across the border from Mexico expressly for the purpose of cultivating marijuana. To reduce chances of detection, workers stay on garden sites for weeks and months at a time, if not the entire growing season. Crews cook over propane stoves to avoid raising easy-to-spot campfires, and post scouts and trip wires to warn of intruders. On site, crews undertake the arduous labor required to raise marijuana. They clear underbrush and trees for garden sites, dig plots, plant seedlings, and construct fences. To irrigate their crop, workers run yards of PVC drip-irrigation lines, often from water sources up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) away, to each individual plant. Laborers often site gardens beneath understories of manzanita brush, a leafy, native shrub, and forest canopies to help camouflage pot gardens from aerial reconnaissance planes. During the growing season, laborers work intensely to fertilize and water plants and keep animal pests, like deer, birds, rodents, and insects, away, often using weapons or poisons. Workers also sex the plants, identifying and destroying male plants before they reach sexual maturity and pollinate female plants—ensuring that the plants bud and produce tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive agent found in cannabis. On site, workers construct makeshift living quarters, erecting simple lean-tos slung with hammocks and kitchen cooking areas, and digging open-pit latrines and garbage dumps. Bivouac sites are often located on the periphery of garden sites to facilitate escape (often successful) during raids by law enforcement personnel. Garden crews are re-supplied with food and fuel at designated drop sites at regular intervals throughout the growing season by drug cartel operatives. Drivers for re-supply routes often rotate vehicles to help avoid detection. Mid-level members of drug cartels often supervise garden sites and act as security enforcers. At the end of the growing season, plants are harvested and dried on site. Buds are snipped and packaged, often by specialized crews, then packed out of the backcountry. Marijuana produced on various remote garden sites is gathered at stash houses run by drug traffickers where it is prepared for distribution on the black market.   Sidebar: Environmental DamageAgents express dismay at the severe environmental damage marijuana gardens cause to watersheds, wildlife, and forest resources. Workers poach game, poison wildlife, defecate into open latrines, and import tons of trash. "The environmental damage that these guys cause is phenomenal," said Laura Mark, the Forest Service's regional drug investigator in California. "And we're not able to clean it up. We do not have the funds or resources." Perhaps most destructive are the hundreds of pounds of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, rat poison that growers haul into each garden sites during the growing season to boost their harvest yields and kill plant-eating pests. Tom Barna, a detective with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, said he is appalled by the damage wrought by growers. "You used to smell the marijuana," he said. "Now you smell the chemicals." Given the grower's need for water to irrigate crops, gardens are sited near backcountry springs and creeks, often the state's most sensitive riparian habitats. Chemicals, which are often stored in nearby dry washes to avoid detection by aerial reconnaissance, soon leach or wash into the watershed. "A lot of the creeks downstream from the [marijuana] grows have absolutely nothing living in them," said Denese Stokes, a Forest Service special agent for drug investigations in southern California. "There's not even mold on the rocks." National Geographic NewsView Marijuana Photo Gallery: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/photogalleries/marijuana/index.htmlSource: National Geographic (DC)Author: Sean Markey in Redding, California Published: November 4, 2003Copyright: 2003 National Geographic SocietyContact: newsdesk nationalgeographic.comWebsite: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/Related Articles:Illegal Crops on Land Likely Go Up In Smokehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17701.shtmlMarijuana is County's No. 2 'Crop'http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17699.shtmlPot Police See Shift To Large Plantationshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17697.shtml

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Comment #8 posted by FoM on November 04, 2003 at 19:47:21 PT
The GCW
Here's a little information about Montel Williams.http://www.montelshow.com/about/index.htm
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Comment #7 posted by The GCW on November 04, 2003 at 19:44:09 PT
FoM
FoM, says: Maybe Montel Williams could be the celebrity that MPP is looking for! That is what I thought when I read this. I don’t have TV, and haven’t got a clue who He is, but He must be the guy. (about Monel Williams, before the link got moved to the Monel Williams story location...)420X10National Geo. Discounts cannabis by allowing all kinds of government paid prohibitionists to have a platform, to say they must exterminate this plant. They don’t ask why cannabis is grown by armed farmers…How many helicopters does the forest service use for fighting all those forest fires and how many do the cannabis prohibitionist use to hunt for the superplant that must be exterminated, … they must think God made a mistake when He created cannabis,,, God is in error.I have requested National Geographic publish an article about the plant cannabis, on more than one occasion, but nooooo. This is how they spotlight cannabis, that is in the spotlight of Nazi lamps.National Geographic hit a low point.The National Forest service is hurting. They don’t have nearly enough money to fight the yearly forest fires. When they do come up with money, it is stolen from another part of the forest service that needs the money but also doesn’t have enough and it is getting worse, yet now with the cannabis growing and the staunch squirming funny, because they force farmers to work in these conditions,,,, they will face a budget crisis that will out rocket the old budget problem!!!!!!There is only 1 solution: RE-legalize cannabis.Nobody stops cannabis.Cannabis is the God plant: the Kahuna of the plant kingdom, it communicates with Us. It tells Us that cannabis prohibition is the devil law. Those that support the devil law, are declaring God in error.Cannabis pro’s are fighting against Christ God Himself.420X100000000000000000000000ooOOo0oO“… let us argue our case together;…” -The Lord -Isaiah 43:26
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on November 04, 2003 at 19:29:41 PT
Just a Note
I removed my two comments from this thread and posted the article on the front page when I couldn't find a more detailed story. I hope he stands up for his medicine. 
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Comment #4 posted by Virgil on November 04, 2003 at 18:41:48 PT

Such demonization without the word prohibition
Why doesn't the leader of the free world hold a press conference devoted to marijuana and the WOD? Is his Crawford vacation more important than the business of the country? Demonize on, you bastards. Prohibition is doomed and a bunch of half of the stories is not helping your cause.
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Comment #2 posted by goneposthole on November 04, 2003 at 18:33:52 PT

Where does the money go?
3 million acres is one-half mile by 3 million rods or 3 million times 16.5 feet (4 rods to a chain, 80 chains to the mile or 66 feet times 80 chains equals 5280 feet, a mile). The distance is 9375 miles. 5 miles wide by 937.5 miles long is three million acres. 50 miles wide by 93.75 miles long is also three million acres. The area is 4687.5 square miles.  
Times 640 acres per square mile, the answer is three million acres. Times 63 and the total area of the national forest throughout the US is a swath of land 3150 miles long by 93.75 miles wide. or, 1575 miles long by 187.5 miles wide. Lots of room to grow."The environmental damage that these guys cause is phenomenal," said Laura Mark, the Forest Service's regional drug investigator in California. "And we're not able to clean it up. We do not have the funds or resources."After 230 years of US government, still no money. Where'd it go? Seems as though there is plenty to wage a drugwar all of the time. Plenty of money for that. Plenty of money for all kinds of wars, by golly. Maybe that's where all of the money goes?Paying taxes to finance wars all over the place all of the time gets depressing. Everybody got their drugs today except for Rush.
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Comment #1 posted by Dave in Florida on November 04, 2003 at 18:30:05 PT

Just think, all those issues would be gone if 
they would legalize cannabis for all purposes..
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