cannabisnews.com: Locally, Pot Growers Flourish -- in Secret 





Locally, Pot Growers Flourish -- in Secret 
Posted by FoM on March 05, 2000 at 15:24:13 PT
By Paul Fattig of the Mail Tribune 
Source: Mail Tribune
 The massive marijuana gardens once found in Southern Oregon have disappeared, but that doesn't mean the illegal weed is no longer being planted in local national forests.  "The problems have definitely not gone away," said Mark Tarantino. "If anything, we've seen a little bit of a resurgence." 
That resurgence has taken root in the form of smaller plots of heavier-producing plants, said Tarantino, the Forest Service's top law enforcement officer for the Rogue River, Siskiyou and Umpqua national forests.  Gone are the plantations with thousands of pot plants once found on local forests, he said.  "The trend here has been for growers to go to smaller sites," he said. "Smaller plant clusters are more difficult to detect from the air. The growers have spread their plants out to compensate for not having large plantations."  Tarantino knows of what he speaks, having been a pot hunter for Uncle Sam, in conjunction with his other law enforcement duties, on the national forests since 1983.  The initial plantings begin as early as March, sometimes as late as June, with harvest following 90 to 120 days afterward, he said.  Last year, because of unusually mild fall weather, the marijuana growing season continued into late November, he said.  "The emphasis now is on the quality, not the quantity," he said of pot plantations in the region. "It's sad but true that growers have learned a lot about growing pot. Most plants are produced by clones. The plant quality is up. These growers are very, very good at what they do. They often bring soil and fertilizer to the sites.  "Coupled with that, we have ideal growing conditions," he added. "The key is the value. The quality of marijuana produced in the Northwest is very, very good."  With an average 2,000 plants seized annually in the local forests and an average mature plant producing at least two pounds of dried dope, which sells on the street for $3,000 to $5,000 a pound, the average seized harvest would be worth some $12 to $20 million, according to Forest Service estimates.  "These are plants that are manicured and cared for," Tarantino said. "We don't get it all but it's always in the several thousand plant range.  "And those lesser numbers are yielding a tremendous value," he added.  Like pot growers in Southern California, those in Southern Oregon cause environmental damage, often trashing the area as well as poisoning animals to keep them away from their plantations, officials say.  And, like his counterparts in California, Tarantino has only a limited staff to battle the stealthy pot growers.  He and his nine officers are spread thin throughout the forests. However, they are backed by forest deputies contracted from sheriff's departments in Jackson, Josephine, Coos, Curry and Douglas counties.  The agency also works closely with Bureau of Land Management officials.  In addition, the Forest Service sometimes relies on the Oregon Army National Guard to help in its hunt for marijuana plants scattered in the forests.  "We use the military component as needed and available," he said, adding, "We're always actively looking for resources in this fight."  The agency also gets help from the public, he said, noting that many forest users often tip officials when they see what appears to be illegal activity.  "They are our best eyes and ears," he said, although adding that the public should never investigate a potential marijuana site because of the potential danger.  Assistance comes periodically from Mother Nature.  "When we had the Silver Fire (in 1987), that burned up a lot of dope," he said of the fire that burned some 100,000 acres in the Siskiyou forest.  While the size of the plantations have changed in the local forests, it's more difficult to accurately describe an "average" grower, Tarantino said.  "We get all range of ages, from juveniles to people over 60 years old," he said, although noting that some are repeat offenders. "But there are some first-timers, too," he added.  But booby traps, sometimes found in pot gardens of the past, are now largely unknown locally, he said.  "We haven't seen any significant booby trap activity in the last few years," he said. "I think the issue there is that federal penalties for booby traps are so severe. They know it's just not a wise thing for them to do."  The illegal growers have also grown wise to the ways of law enforcement officers.  "When we didn't have as active an aerial program to look for the plants, I noticed that bigger sites were coming back," he said. "But that quickly seemed to vanish, with a few exceptions, when we became more active in the aerial program again."  Growers have become stealthier about where they put individual plants, he said.  "They are often very well concealed from above," he said. "A lot of them (plantations) are remote. But those that are close to a transportation source like a road may be covered with brush. We're seeing a tremendous variety of methods used to conceal them.  "We used to just look on a south slope by a water source," he added. "Now we find dope at higher elevations. It's just not always consistent where you find them like it used to be." Grants Pass:March 5, 2000 Southern Oregon's On-line News SourceCopyright © The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USARelated Articles & Web Site:CRRHhttp://www.crrh.org/ Introduction To The Oregon Cannabis Tax Acthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread2900.shtmlPot Activist Will Sue Over Law Enforcement Tacticshttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2796.shtmlMarijuana Activist Says 'No' to Police Soliciting http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2731.shtml 
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on March 05, 2000 at 15:54:26 PT:
Like squeezing a baloon
Squeeze here, it bulges there. Squeeze somewhere else and it bulges in the opposite direction. But like a mentally deficient child, they never seem to tumble to it.Helicopters. Infra-red devices. Satellite photography. National Guard troops. And the growers still grow. And the quality improves. They just never learn.
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