cannabisnews.com: Pot Growers Boldly Expanding Operations





Pot Growers Boldly Expanding Operations
Posted by FoM on September 23, 2000 at 15:37:52 PT
By Jim Herron Zamora of The Examiner Staff
Source: San Francisco Examiner 
These buds were so sweet and sticky that even marijuana's sworn enemies gasped with appreciation. Carefully hidden among a thick canopy of madrone on a steep hill near Crystal Springs Reservoir was the largest pot farm -- 11,800 ripe plants -- ever found in San Mateo County. The six-foot plants were dripping the potent resin loved by cannabis connoisseurs. "This is a thing of beauty -- this garden, these plants -- all great work," said Sgt. Steve Switzer, sniffing a pungent bud and shaking his head. "It's a pot-smoker's dream: ripe stinky plants all over the mountain." 
Then, he grabbed his machete, looked at the 15 other camouflage-clad cops, cracked a broad smile and pronounced: "Cut them all down. Let's make this grower real angry. We want him to cry." The crew chopped $45 million worth of pot last Monday, part of a record-breaking day in a record-setting year for the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting. CAMP backers have cause to celebrate. CAMP is more efficient and successful than ever at finding marijuana, destroying twice as much this year as in 1998 and triple the haul in 1996. "We've got a few weeks of growing season left but we've already broken all the records for seizures," said California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The state estimates the average full-grown sinsemilla plant is worth $4,000. By Friday, CAMP destroyed more than 300,000 plants since this year's campaign began in late August, putting a dent in a billion dollar illegal industry. CAMP is doing it all on less money. The program, using state agents and local cops, has a budget of $600,000 -- down from $2 million in 1990. One big reason is that cops have become more efficient at using helicopters to pinpoint gardens and drop officers by 150-foot cable into remote ravines. This saves the time and trouble of hiking in from the nearest trail. The gardens have also gotten bigger, more elaborate and easier to spot by trained forest rangers. But even as Lockyer relishes CAMP's success, the pot war faces challenges on several fronts. First, there is the ingenuity of growers who know that for a few thousand dollars of investment, one good crop can make millions. Another problem is contradictory attitudes of the public, with an estimated 60 million current or former pot smokers nationally. California voters, who approved medical cannabis via Proposition 215 four years ago, will decide in November on Proposition 36, a law proposed to send most drug users into treatment instead of prison. Already, several counties, including San Francisco, rarely enforce marijuana laws when it involves small quantities. Voters in Mendocino County will consider an advisory measure in November to legalize personal use of pot. In 1996 about two thirds of the voters there backed Proposition 215. Measure G backers say the county is ready to send Congress a message that pot should be treated more like tobacco and alcohol than heroin and cocaine. "The existing drug laws are the best price support system that I have ever seen for a farm product," said John Pinches, a Republican rancher who was on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors from 1995 to 1999. "They've driven the price of marijuana up higher than the price of gold." Even some cops have lost faith in the marijuana war. "I've spent 30 years fighting drugs and I don't know that the war is winnable," said Gary Holder, police chief of Ferndale and retired Mendocino County sheriff's deputy. "Personally I would rather all the money used to fight marijuana used on an all-out fight against methamphetamine. There's no comparison about which drug causes more harm." Lockyer concedes "there are contradictory pressures" in society when it comes to marijuana. "I don't use drugs. I don't condone the use of drugs and I am going to use our authority to stamp out the use of drugs," he said. "But this is totally separate from my support for the medical use of marijuana." The battle is in the marketplace as well as the ballot box. Marijuana growing used to be dominated by hippies who lovingly cultivated remote gardens in state's North Coast. It was rare to see fields bigger than 2,000 plants. Now most pot fields are larger "corporate grows" bankrolled by Mexican cartels and farmed by undocumented workers whose bosses move them from farm to farm. These are the same gangs that dominate drug smuggling from Mexico and methamphetamine production in California, according to Lockyer and a DEA report to Congress. "They decided it was more cost-effective to grow it here than smuggle it in," said Sonya Arriaga Barna, head of CAMP. "If you plant 20 big gardens, you can afford to lose 18 or 19 of them." From the early 1970s onward, marijuana growing occurred primarily in the so-called Emerald Triangle: Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties. But in the past five years it has spread from the volcanic soil of Modoc County to the coastal hills northeast of San Diego. California's biggest known pot farm was the 58,000 plants in Kern County on Aug. 31, breaking a record 53,000 plants in San Benito County in 1999. Each crop was worth more than $200 million. Marijuana is booming in the range land on the edges of the Central Valley. Growers have learned to hide pot in scrub brush along steep gullies. "They are getting more creative," Barna said. "The growers realize that with water you can grow anything in Central Valley." On Sept. 15, Barna led a team that found 2,800 plants hidden among several acres of thorn bushes in a ravine on the edge of a farm in Merced County. "They burrowed tunnels through hundreds of feet of thorn bushes," Barna said. "It looked like a maze though the thorn bushes. Just half a mile away there were walnut trees but you could stand on the outside and not see a thing." The bust would have been nearly impossible if not for the ability to fly overhead and drop officers from helicopters using 150-foot steel cables. "The guys who tried to crawl in were bloody from all the thorns," Barna said. Since its 1983 inception, CAMP has evolved to a narrow focus on crop eradication and puts little emphasis on trying to catch the grower. It is difficult and dangerous to catch field workers. Most of the time, farm workers hear the helicopters and melt into the underbrush. Even elaborate stakeouts with local police to catch growers are usually unsuccessful. Minutes before sunrise last Wednesday, a team of Fresno County sheriff's deputies hiked into a 1,600-plant farm in the Jose Basin area of the Sierra National Forest hoping to catch the growers. They arranged for the helicopter to stay back and only take to the air once deputies entered the farm. But the suspects -- who were having tortillas and beans for breakfast -- were too quick. They disappeared into the buckbrush and manzanita but left behind 50 pounds of dried, manicured pot as well as 1,500 plants. "We were so close we could hear them running," said Sgt. Rick Pursell. "We wanted these guys. But they know the country. They've been here all summer and they know exactly where to run." Nearly all the suspects arrested in CAMP raids this summer were recently brought in from Mexico. A worker is paid about $1,000 a month from April planting to September harvest, Barna said. Often another member of the gang picks the site. The workers are often taken blindfolded from Los Angeles and dropped off on a road near the garden so to avoid the temptation to rip off the boss. "We've had guys who had no idea what county they were in," Barna said. The farm workers are usually armed -- often with AK-47s. The firepower is not intended for cops but to defend the crop from dope thieves. But they rarely resist arrest. One exception was Aug. 24, when Jesus Figueroa-Valencia was fatally shot after pulling a handgun on sheriff's deputies raiding a 7,000-plant farm in Madera County, deputies said. "These guys are taught to run from law enforcement but they are ready to take on anyone else," said Gabe Escovedo, a CAMP supervisor. "They could shoot anyone from hunters and hikers to kids trying to steal some dope." Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)Author: Jim Herron Zamora of The Examiner Staff ©2000 San Francisco Examiner Published: September 24, 2000 Contact: letters examiner.comWebsite: http://www.examiner.com/Forum: http://examiner.com/cgi-bin/WebXRelated Articles: Massive Pot Farm in Hills Discovered http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7140.shtmlRecord Drug Bust Near San Mateo County Reservoirhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7133.shtmlMadera Cultivates Millions in Pot Haul http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7116.shtmlPot Warriorhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7047.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on September 24, 2000 at 12:43:25 PT:
Remember the schoolyard bully?
Ever wonder what happened to him? (Or in some cases, her.) T'"This is a thing of beauty -- this garden, these plants -- all great work," said Sgt. Steve Switzer, sniffing a pungent bud and shaking his head. "It's a pot-smoker's dream: ripe stinky plants all over the mountain." Then, he grabbed his machete, looked at the 15 other camouflage-clad cops, cracked a broad smile and pronounced: "Cut them all down. Let's make this grower real angry. We want him to cry."I've worked with a lot of cops and security types, military and civ. And one thing stands out: the vast majority of them were hurt by someone very early in life, but were unable to strike back. So these smouldering resentments against the pain and humiliation they suffered runs deep. Many of these wounded souls get very bitter and angry, and largely at themselves for *allowing themselves* to be hurt. (As if a child has any defense against a vicious father.) That kind of 'weakness' they see in themselves they despise. They are also afraid anyone else will discover that 'weakness' in them. Very often they perceive others as being equally 'weak' and punish them subconsciously out of that loathing of that quality in themselves. So, to expunge that sense of weakness, they seek to 'exorcise' it by violence against others. But out of the still niggling fear of authority figures, the would-be criminal is frustrated in his or her efforts. Unless they, of course, BECOME the 'authorities'.As you might imagine, such damaged goods usually find legally sanctioned outlets in professions where their propensity for violent behavior can be exercised. Like police work. The brutality, the beatings, the tauntings of subdued suspects, berating them, it all fits. Sad, very sad. The outlaw wannabes have to settle for being cops when all they really wanted to be they were born 80 years too late for: the guys with the silver thunderbolts on their black tunic collars and death's heads on their caps.
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Comment #3 posted by Carlos on September 24, 2000 at 11:53:53 PT
"I don't use drugs."
Nor did Godfrey of Bouillon, Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher. So what? What does it mean? Why is the California Attorney General obliged to tell us, "I don't use drugs"? Here is the state's First Cop, a fellow who drops armed men from helicopters and steel cables into remote briar thickets to destroy drugs, and he must assure us, "I don't use drugs". Why should he tell me this? Can I be sure? Has he been tested? What does it mean?One day, and over the years there have been many, the topic of lunch table conversation turned to - drugs!? The bantering group grew quiet, apprehensive. What to do? There could be trouble here! One fellow offered, "I've never even tried pot." Another, "I've never fooled around with that stuff." Round the table it went, one by one to solemnly drink of His Blood: "I don't use drugs." With evident leadership, someone summarized our discussion. "Yeah. Best to just not get involved with that stuff." Then a welcome clanking of silver and scraping of chairs, and an early return to work. Phew!That's your brain on Drug War Ideology. Tell me that the drug wars do not diminish every one of us. As in all totalitarian movements, one is required to abdicate responsibility for his own thoughts. Leave thinking and discussion to others who know for certain, and who can provide you with valid thoughts. Stay out of trouble. And that's all that most people want. To stay out of trouble, to be let alone and to get on with life. How can one be let alone? By chanting, "I don't use drugs." It is the premise, the content and the conclusion of all the government studies, all its pronouncements, all its scientific research: Don't use drugs. How could it be wrong? Why won't you chant with us? Are you on drugs? Recant, and come, good citizen, chant with us.We have a president who used drugs, but he deeply regrets it and will destroy your life for the same. We have a vice president who said "I used drugs", but he is more mature now and wants to prosecute you. We have a candidate who won't say, but he has found Jesus and wants to imprison you. Is this what Your Church teaches?It's insane. It's propaganda. It's sickening. It's the same war we've fought for millennia. It's the war on the Jew, on the communist, on the Infidel, on the Black. It's the war of the tyrant who wants not only your taxes, but your mind and your daily mindless pledge. Because his ideology has no basis in reality and he needs your assent as his only proof of veracity. He needs invincible force in hand to confirm the for himself the Truth, again and again. It is, like all totalitarian movements, a naive program of utopian social engineering by force. You had better fit in with the tyrant's great vision. Don't dare be different. You must join. Or are you unfit for the perfect new world, the Drug-Free World?It's your choice. It's easy to choose brain death and chant when your life is threatened, when your liberty is at stake, when your family could be hauled away in the night. If you use drugs, if you look like you might be using drugs, if someone suspects you might be using drugs, if a secret voice whispers, "He used drugs", then, well - you could be fired. You could be compelled to urinate under scrutiny or sign an oath. You could lose your friends, your business or your life. They will come in the night, wearing body armor and masks, and bash your door from its hinges in the way of the Nazi. You could miss lunch! Keep chanting, and they will come for you, too.But as the lie grows bigger, it's also harder to chant. When physicians were ordered to instruct their patients, "Don't use drugs", and when they were threatened with revocation of their medical licenses, they revolted. Because this, they said, is not medicine. It's not civilized. Carl Sagan managed to say it from the grave: I used drugs, and they were good. Two governors have said it: I used drugs and, guess what, I'm still breathing. Three governors, now, are saying it: Legalize.You were wondering what I, Lehder, said at noon communion, weren't you? Did I chant? Did I swear to high heaven as you swore to high heaven, "I don't use drugs"? Why do you need to know?It's not a war on drugs. It's a war on civilization. It's a war on liberty. It's a war on your mind. "It's the icy fingers of a barbarian clutching your shoulder."------------"Patterns of Tyranny", Maurice Latey"We and They", Robert Conquest
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Comment #2 posted by EdC on September 24, 2000 at 05:09:48 PT:
Pot growers boldly expanding operations
Lockyer says "I don't use drugs. I don't condone the use of drugs and I am going to use our authority to stamp out the use of drugs." Where does does this authority come from? Surely it is not in the Constitution.
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Comment #1 posted by max on September 23, 2000 at 18:02:50 PT:
4 words
next year....booby traps
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