cannabisnews.com: State Pot Farms on Move 





State Pot Farms on Move 
Posted by FoM on June 04, 2001 at 16:57:28 PT
By Larry D. Hatfield, Chronicle Staff Writer
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
Increasingly controlled by a handful of Mexican drug cartels, California's billion-dollar wilderness marijuana industry has shifted from the Emerald Triangle in the north to the southern Sierra Nevada, according to federal and state law enforcement officials. And following a record year last year, officials are gearing up for another bumper crop both in production and seizures this year. The highly valued California-grown pot is literally as valuable as gold, selling today for about the same price as the metal, at around $4,200 a pound. 
Not only is the illicit marijuana industry a major crime problem -- authorities say the Mexican cartels are using profits from their illegal methamphetamine operations to finance expanding pot farms in California and elsewhere -- officials say it poses serious threats to the wilderness ecology and to people using California's and the nation's backcountry. "This is a really serious problem," said Jerry Moore, regional law enforcement director for the U.S. Forest Service. "And it's a problem that has spread all over the state." He said the most serious change in the shadow industry is the inroads made by Mexican drug organizations. "We think we have at least two organizations working here in California, maybe more," Moore said. Intelligence sources have information that the cartels have divided up territories, with some operating in California and on mostly federal lands elsewhere, including in the Appalachians in the East. "There's still a number of people growing marijuana for commercial use who have been involved for more than 20 years, mainly in the north, but these organized groups have pretty much taken over," Moore said. That means bigger operations and bigger problems for law enforcement. "The days of a hippie growing a few plants in the woods is pretty much over, " said Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes. "What's taken over is large, organized cartels, many originating in Mexico, that grow up to 10,000 or more (plants) in a plantation." Authorities said the center of the industry has spread from its old base in Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties -- the so-called Emerald Triangle -- into the Sierra foothills and mountains from Calaveras to Kern County. Indeed, more than half of the 345,207 marijuana plants seized last year by California's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) were in the Central Valley and Sierra foothills. Kern County, which includes remote wilderness areas in the Sequoia National Forest, has become a favorite of pot farmers -- it led CAMP seizures with 59, 015 plants. Nearly half of California's 59 counties had pot gardens raided by local and state authorities last year and federal authorities said there were raids in all of the state's 18 national forests. The national forests cover 20 million acres, one-fifth of California. Moore said there are huge problems with wilderness marijuana plantations in Tulare and Tehama counties, that the sophisticated growing operations have spread into the Angeles, Los Padres and San Bernardino national forests. "Those areas are not traditionally big garden areas," Moore said. A 60,000-plant operation was busted in Sequoia National Forest last year and Moore said several 5,000 to 7,000-plant gardens have already been found in Cleveland National Forest, primarily in San Diego and Orange counties, this year. The exact size of California's marijuana crop is impossible to determine, but judging from last year's record seizures, it ranks up there with tourism and agriculture as one of the state's major industries. Comprehensive figures are difficult to determine because of inter-agency overlap but last year, the attorney general's CAMP program claimed its 345,207 marijuana plants seized were 43 percent more than the previous record, set in 1999. The retail value of the plants - 203,964 from public lands and 141,243 from private lands -- was estimated at $1.3 billion. The Forest Service said 440,000 plants were seized on national forest lands. In fact, that figure may have been 100,000 plants or so higher because of eradication efforts by sheriff's departments or the state, Moore said. CAMP seized 59,015 plants in Kern County but Kern and other counties seized even more in local raids. Tulare County Sheriff's Lt. Greg Wright, for instance, said his agency alone eradicated 60,000 plants with an estimated value of $180 million. The wilderness pot farms are labor-intensive operations, requiring growers to pack in all their equipment, to maintain caretakers and guards at the site during the growing season and to walk in bigger crews for the planting and harvesting. They leave more than footprints. "One of the worst things about the plantations is the environmental degradation the growers wreak on the national forests," the Forest Service's Mathes said. The plots are generally planted on steep slopes above wilderness rivers, some of them designated wild and scenic. "They cut away the native vegetation and put in a lot of fertilizer," Mathes said. "They use excessive amounts of herbicides, pesticides and rodenticides to keep away competing vegetation and to kill animals that feed on the plants, like wood rats. Wood rats happen to be the favorite food of the Northern and California spotted owls, species that already are in trouble. "All these poisons end up getting washed into the rivers the following winter. They're also not very good housekeepers. These sites are strewn with trash and human waste." The growers also drain nearby creeks for their elaborate drip watering systems. "They pretty much suck a little creek dry to water their plantation," Mathes said. "These people don't have any respect for the environment," added Moore. "They don't really care that their poisons get into the watershed or affect some of these natural ecosystems." Moreover, authorities noted, the forest pot farms pose a danger to the public using the woods. "It's an incredibly valuable crop," Mathes said, "and these people are generally armed. That poses some risk to forest visitors, like you and me. Fortunately, they generally plant in out-of-the-way places." Moore urged hikers, hunters and fishermen going into remote and sparsely populated wilderness areas to check with local rangers and other authorities about possible marijuana operations. If one encounters a grower or a garden in the wild, he said, "get out of there as fast as you can and report it to your local forest office." Coping with the well-financed, profitable and mobile cartel operations is increasingly difficult for budget-strained law enforcement agencies. "We're always kind of behind the eight ball," Moore said. He said anti-pot activities have had to be funded out of his regular law enforcement budget "which has been woefully inadequate to mount a real effective drug enforcement effort." Note: Mexican cartels plant in southern Sierra, cops say. Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Larry D. Hatfield, Chronicle Staff WriterPublished: Monday, June 4, 2001 Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle  Page A - 1 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles:Mendocino County Law Enforcers Say http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8862.shtmlPatton of Pot - 60 Minutes IIhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8656.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Emerald Trianglehttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=Emerald+Triangle
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Comment #1 posted by Doug on June 05, 2001 at 09:44:22 PT
Boo Hoo
Even assunming we can trust the self-serving statements of narks, this story only proves, as the song has it, money changes everything. It should be (but of course isn't) obvious to everyone that the one reason the problems described in the article exist is the illeagity of marijuana. And of course eventually organized crime comes into production and distribution. Did anyone expect any less? This article is actually a great argument for legalization, but of course the author didn't (and perhaps couldn't) spin it that way. That's a pity, since the situation described is only going to become worse. Or it will unless we can convince everyone to stop smoking dope! World peace is more likely.
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