Post by greenteam on Nov 21, 2006 15:18:56 GMT -5
US CA: Marijuana Growers Are a Risk to Police, Public, Environment
URL: www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1572/a10.html
Newshawk: Please Write a LTE www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
Rate this article Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 20 Nov 2006
Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA)
Copyright: 2006 Record Searchlight
Contact: letters@redding.com
Website: www.redding.com/
Details: www.mapinc.org/media/360
Author: Dylan Darling, Record Searchlight
Note: Part three of a four part series. Part 1 'Marijuana Is Big Business in Remote Forest' www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n1572.a08.html Part 2 'Economics Entice Mexican Nationals to Toil in Pot Plots' www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n1572.a09.html Part 4 'North State Officials Try to Make a Federal Case Against Pot Growers' www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n1573.a11.html
Cited: Chris Conrad www.chrisconrad.com
Bookmark: www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California)
A Dangerous Crop:
MARIJUANA GROWERS ARE A RISK TO POLICE, PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENT
Troy McCoy carries a reminder in his left forearm of how dangerous a marijuana garden can be.
A deputy with the Tehama County Sheriff's Department, McCoy was shot four years ago with a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun used by a pot grower to protect his plants.
McCoy and eight other sheriff's deputies were raiding a marijuana garden early Aug. 21, 2002, in the Coast Range foothills about 10 miles west of Red Bluff, when one of the four men found in the garden shot at McCoy. McCoy shot back twice, but missed. The grower shot another six times, hitting McCoy once.
Other deputies made an arrest just after the shooting. Nicolas Reyes Vallejo, 27, is now in his third year of a 15-year attempted murder sentence at the federal Taft Correctional Institute, and McCoy is back on the job.
Fully recovered but still carrying the bullet in his arm -- doctors said more damage would be caused trying to pull it out -- McCoy is part of the crew of Tehama County sheriff's detectives and deputies who raid pot gardens each summer.
"It makes me want to get them even more," he said of the shooting.
Pot gardens on public land aren't only a problem in Tehama County. They are found throughout the north state. And law enforcement officers say the measures growers will take to guard the gardens are putting people at risk, not only those who raid them but also members of the public who come across them.
Hear 'Em Coming
Because of the danger of being shot and the difficulty of trying to catch marijuana farmers, some counties don't go after the pot growers. Officials just want to get the marijuana out of the woods before it makes it to the streets.
In Shasta County, raids are usually preceded by a helicopter buzzing the gardens, which serves as a warning to growers that officers are coming.
"I'd rather get a garden today and let someone get away than ( spend ) time chasing someone and let other gardens get harvested," said Sgt. Todd Larson, who heads the marijuana-eradication team for the Shasta County Sheriff's Department.
Having lived in the gardens for sometimes as long as five months, growers know the terrain much better than the raiding deputies and police. They often disappear into the brush by the time officers arrive. But they usually leave behind their food and camping gear.
Such was the case Sept. 19 during a raid 12 miles into the woods near Fender's Ferry Road off Highway 299 east of Redding. The first member of Larson's team into the garden had caught just a glimpse of someone running into the thick vegetation surrounding the garden. Supplies were left behind in the grower's haste to get away, including work boots, a shovel and plenty of food.
Larson's team of four poured vegetable oil and sugar over most of the food supply before going to work, pulling up the couple hundred plants in the garden. While the pot plants were carried out by helicopter using a sling line, the food was left behind but in a condition that would kill most appetites.
Signs of a Pot Garden
As the problem of illegally growing pot on public land grows, so does the chance people will stumble into a garden.
"If the public should come upon something suspicious, don't enter the area. Leave and notify local law enforcement authorities immediately," said Michael Cobbold, safety officer with the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. "For ( your ) own safety, do not enter any garden area."
Here are signs that a marijuana garden might be nearby, as provided by the U.S. Forest Service:
. Isolated tents or trailers in parts of the forest where there's no recreational activity.
. Vehicles on the same isolated roads on a regular basis.
. Unusual structures, with buckets, garden tools and bags of fertilizer.
. Signs of cultivation or soil disturbance.
. Irrigation piping and trash.
"If we leave them stuff, then we are just helping them out," Larson said.
Officers either take the confiscated pot to the Wheelabrator Shasta Energy Co. power plant in Anderson to be burned or it gets buried at landfills around the north state, he said. At the landfills, the pot is covered by layers of trash and quickly biodegrades.
"It basically turns to mush," Larson said.
The garbage and trashed food supplies left behind on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service usually gets picked up by work crews long after the raids, Larson said.
Those raiding pot gardens in Tehama County share the strategy of not leaving behind useful items for growers. Helicopters there take out more than pot. Their nets carry away food, sleeping bags and other supplies that could be helpful to growers.
Unlike in Shasta County, Tehama County detectives and deputies go in first in hopes of making arrests; then a helicopter clears out the pot. Deputies want to use the element of surprise, said Lt. Darrell Plemons of the Tehama County Sheriff's Department.
Water and Sunshine
Although the techniques in dealing with marijuana gardens differ from agency to agency, the problem remains the same around the north state. The hot summers provide perfect growing weather, as long as the growers can find a water supply.
Got sun. Got water. Got pot.
The growers aren't afraid to plant big gardens, some covering several acres, because the surrounding land often conceals them. The same rugged mountains, lush vegetation and mountain springs that lure newcomers to the north state also are magnets for marijuana growers.
"The north state has a tremendous amount of mountainous terrain that can provide canopy to hide these grows," said Gordon Taylor, who heads the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration region that runs from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.
Also, compared with more populous counties to the south, north state counties have a larger number of publicly managed acres and fewer law enforcement officers to patrol them. While grown here, the pot -- which is gaining a national reputation for its potency -- doesn't stay.
"It ends up all over the United States," Taylor said.
Organized Crime
Distributing marijuana, which is usually sent south and then east to all parts of the United States, takes an organized effort. That effort is provided by drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs, that usually have roots in Mexico, although many of their main players may live in California, said McGregor Scott, U.S. attorney for California's eastern district and former Shasta County district attorney.
"People just think of hippies -- for lack of a better word -- out in the woods, growing some dope," he said. "That's just not what we are dealing with anymore. It's highly organized, highly armed, Mexican drug cartels."
The cartels have started growing pot gardens in the United States, rather than smuggling it across the Mexican border, because of ever-tightening restrictions on the border, Scott said. As evidence of the Mexican cartels, officers in the field point to the fact that many growers arrested in large marijuana gardens are either Mexicans or Americans who emigrated from Mexico. In Tehama County this year, 80 percent of about 20 people arrested were Mexicans in the country illegally, according to the Tehama County Sheriff's Department. But critics say that Mexican workers, both in the country legally and illegally, are the default workers when it comes to agriculture, so it's hard to pinpoint who is in charge of the gardens.
"Does that mean the Mexican mafia is growing our oranges, our tomatoes and our beans?" said Chris Conrad, a marijuana proponent who has been studying the plant since 1988 and often serves as an expert witness in court cases involving the plant's cultivation.
Wherever the chain of command leads, McCoy, the Tehama County sheriff's deputy who was shot four years ago, said authorities are determined to stop pot growing on public land. He said he knows first-hand how dangerous pot growers can be to law enforcement and the public. And the bullet in his arm isn't the only bullet he thinks about.
"They pulled some out of the tree above my head, those were the scary ones," McCoy said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Dangerous Crop?!?!?!?!?! ... the crop isn't dangerous... its the ignorance of a community that thinks it can rid the world of a substance in demand that is dangerous..... pointless.... I'm thinking now the only way for them to bring any logic to the table is to have the cartels in the streets killing people.... even then if we don't speak out... they may still think "damn marijuana always causing havoc"
THIS is ridiculous -- The journalist doesn't see that prohibition is CAUSING these problems --- please write him --- maybe he'll publish a reasonable retort!!!
URL: www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1572/a10.html
Newshawk: Please Write a LTE www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides
Rate this article Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 20 Nov 2006
Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA)
Copyright: 2006 Record Searchlight
Contact: letters@redding.com
Website: www.redding.com/
Details: www.mapinc.org/media/360
Author: Dylan Darling, Record Searchlight
Note: Part three of a four part series. Part 1 'Marijuana Is Big Business in Remote Forest' www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n1572.a08.html Part 2 'Economics Entice Mexican Nationals to Toil in Pot Plots' www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n1572.a09.html Part 4 'North State Officials Try to Make a Federal Case Against Pot Growers' www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n1573.a11.html
Cited: Chris Conrad www.chrisconrad.com
Bookmark: www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California)
A Dangerous Crop:
MARIJUANA GROWERS ARE A RISK TO POLICE, PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENT
Troy McCoy carries a reminder in his left forearm of how dangerous a marijuana garden can be.
A deputy with the Tehama County Sheriff's Department, McCoy was shot four years ago with a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun used by a pot grower to protect his plants.
McCoy and eight other sheriff's deputies were raiding a marijuana garden early Aug. 21, 2002, in the Coast Range foothills about 10 miles west of Red Bluff, when one of the four men found in the garden shot at McCoy. McCoy shot back twice, but missed. The grower shot another six times, hitting McCoy once.
Other deputies made an arrest just after the shooting. Nicolas Reyes Vallejo, 27, is now in his third year of a 15-year attempted murder sentence at the federal Taft Correctional Institute, and McCoy is back on the job.
Fully recovered but still carrying the bullet in his arm -- doctors said more damage would be caused trying to pull it out -- McCoy is part of the crew of Tehama County sheriff's detectives and deputies who raid pot gardens each summer.
"It makes me want to get them even more," he said of the shooting.
Pot gardens on public land aren't only a problem in Tehama County. They are found throughout the north state. And law enforcement officers say the measures growers will take to guard the gardens are putting people at risk, not only those who raid them but also members of the public who come across them.
Hear 'Em Coming
Because of the danger of being shot and the difficulty of trying to catch marijuana farmers, some counties don't go after the pot growers. Officials just want to get the marijuana out of the woods before it makes it to the streets.
In Shasta County, raids are usually preceded by a helicopter buzzing the gardens, which serves as a warning to growers that officers are coming.
"I'd rather get a garden today and let someone get away than ( spend ) time chasing someone and let other gardens get harvested," said Sgt. Todd Larson, who heads the marijuana-eradication team for the Shasta County Sheriff's Department.
Having lived in the gardens for sometimes as long as five months, growers know the terrain much better than the raiding deputies and police. They often disappear into the brush by the time officers arrive. But they usually leave behind their food and camping gear.
Such was the case Sept. 19 during a raid 12 miles into the woods near Fender's Ferry Road off Highway 299 east of Redding. The first member of Larson's team into the garden had caught just a glimpse of someone running into the thick vegetation surrounding the garden. Supplies were left behind in the grower's haste to get away, including work boots, a shovel and plenty of food.
Larson's team of four poured vegetable oil and sugar over most of the food supply before going to work, pulling up the couple hundred plants in the garden. While the pot plants were carried out by helicopter using a sling line, the food was left behind but in a condition that would kill most appetites.
Signs of a Pot Garden
As the problem of illegally growing pot on public land grows, so does the chance people will stumble into a garden.
"If the public should come upon something suspicious, don't enter the area. Leave and notify local law enforcement authorities immediately," said Michael Cobbold, safety officer with the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. "For ( your ) own safety, do not enter any garden area."
Here are signs that a marijuana garden might be nearby, as provided by the U.S. Forest Service:
. Isolated tents or trailers in parts of the forest where there's no recreational activity.
. Vehicles on the same isolated roads on a regular basis.
. Unusual structures, with buckets, garden tools and bags of fertilizer.
. Signs of cultivation or soil disturbance.
. Irrigation piping and trash.
"If we leave them stuff, then we are just helping them out," Larson said.
Officers either take the confiscated pot to the Wheelabrator Shasta Energy Co. power plant in Anderson to be burned or it gets buried at landfills around the north state, he said. At the landfills, the pot is covered by layers of trash and quickly biodegrades.
"It basically turns to mush," Larson said.
The garbage and trashed food supplies left behind on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service usually gets picked up by work crews long after the raids, Larson said.
Those raiding pot gardens in Tehama County share the strategy of not leaving behind useful items for growers. Helicopters there take out more than pot. Their nets carry away food, sleeping bags and other supplies that could be helpful to growers.
Unlike in Shasta County, Tehama County detectives and deputies go in first in hopes of making arrests; then a helicopter clears out the pot. Deputies want to use the element of surprise, said Lt. Darrell Plemons of the Tehama County Sheriff's Department.
Water and Sunshine
Although the techniques in dealing with marijuana gardens differ from agency to agency, the problem remains the same around the north state. The hot summers provide perfect growing weather, as long as the growers can find a water supply.
Got sun. Got water. Got pot.
The growers aren't afraid to plant big gardens, some covering several acres, because the surrounding land often conceals them. The same rugged mountains, lush vegetation and mountain springs that lure newcomers to the north state also are magnets for marijuana growers.
"The north state has a tremendous amount of mountainous terrain that can provide canopy to hide these grows," said Gordon Taylor, who heads the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration region that runs from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.
Also, compared with more populous counties to the south, north state counties have a larger number of publicly managed acres and fewer law enforcement officers to patrol them. While grown here, the pot -- which is gaining a national reputation for its potency -- doesn't stay.
"It ends up all over the United States," Taylor said.
Organized Crime
Distributing marijuana, which is usually sent south and then east to all parts of the United States, takes an organized effort. That effort is provided by drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs, that usually have roots in Mexico, although many of their main players may live in California, said McGregor Scott, U.S. attorney for California's eastern district and former Shasta County district attorney.
"People just think of hippies -- for lack of a better word -- out in the woods, growing some dope," he said. "That's just not what we are dealing with anymore. It's highly organized, highly armed, Mexican drug cartels."
The cartels have started growing pot gardens in the United States, rather than smuggling it across the Mexican border, because of ever-tightening restrictions on the border, Scott said. As evidence of the Mexican cartels, officers in the field point to the fact that many growers arrested in large marijuana gardens are either Mexicans or Americans who emigrated from Mexico. In Tehama County this year, 80 percent of about 20 people arrested were Mexicans in the country illegally, according to the Tehama County Sheriff's Department. But critics say that Mexican workers, both in the country legally and illegally, are the default workers when it comes to agriculture, so it's hard to pinpoint who is in charge of the gardens.
"Does that mean the Mexican mafia is growing our oranges, our tomatoes and our beans?" said Chris Conrad, a marijuana proponent who has been studying the plant since 1988 and often serves as an expert witness in court cases involving the plant's cultivation.
Wherever the chain of command leads, McCoy, the Tehama County sheriff's deputy who was shot four years ago, said authorities are determined to stop pot growing on public land. He said he knows first-hand how dangerous pot growers can be to law enforcement and the public. And the bullet in his arm isn't the only bullet he thinks about.
"They pulled some out of the tree above my head, those were the scary ones," McCoy said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Dangerous Crop?!?!?!?!?! ... the crop isn't dangerous... its the ignorance of a community that thinks it can rid the world of a substance in demand that is dangerous..... pointless.... I'm thinking now the only way for them to bring any logic to the table is to have the cartels in the streets killing people.... even then if we don't speak out... they may still think "damn marijuana always causing havoc"
THIS is ridiculous -- The journalist doesn't see that prohibition is CAUSING these problems --- please write him --- maybe he'll publish a reasonable retort!!!