Posted on 08/05/2008 1:04:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It used to be that marijuana came to the Bay Area from the legendary back country of Humboldt County or the desert fields beyond Tijuana.
Now the fields are in the Bay Area, and everywhere else in the state. Marijuana is one of the top cash crops in California, NBC Bay Area's Mike Luery reported.
Many of the fields are located next to popular trails and in the middle of state parks.
A fierce battle is being waged in our own back yard to remove the pot groves. They are hidden in brush so thick that specially trained officers must dangle dangerously from ropes tied to helicopters or hike miles just to get in.
"If you grow it, we will come," said one agent.
"We've recovered assault weapons, rifles and hand guns from those that we've arrested," said another agent.
Last year, the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting eradicated nearly 3 million pot plants. Most of them, about 75 percent, were found on public land.
"They're basically stealing the land from what it was intended for, which is recreation and hiking and hunting," said Ryan Pontecorvo, Eradication Team Commander.
One pot grove that Luery visited in the Napa Valley is located on federal land owned by the Bureau of Land Management. However, Luery said, typically agents find farms in state and national parks.
Wherever people go, drug traffickers have chopped down trees and hijacked the water supply.
They lay hundreds of yards of plastic tubing to irrigate their plants with stolen water, while leaving behind mounds of fertilizer and trash that brings chemical pollution.
"The folks who are growing the marijuana are not your peace hippies from the 60s," said Gary Pitkin of the Special Agent Eradication Team. "These are armed members of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations, who utilize assault style weapons, assault rifles to protect their cash crops."
Confrontations have been fatal, as in the recent Santa Clara County case where agents killed an armed trafficker.
Marijuana farming is big business in California. In one day, teams eradicated 9,000 plants with a street value of $27 million.
Hunting?!?! Is there any public land for hunting in the Bay Area?
Ping
Gee. I thought weed was considered to be recreation in CA.
May I ask why my post was removed, it was made in jest?
Someone help me out here. If the farms are on public land, does that mean they have to share?
What did you say ?
They will probably share from their machine gun clip with you. I met a Ranger a couple years ago who had been shot on Mt. Umunhum in a raid there in 2005.
Not by this Californian. I’d consider bringing weed killer on my next hike, but I might be tempted to do something that would get me shot.
Field growing is the poor man’s way. Here in the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley the trend is to use upscale houses as nurseries. Recently one Asian gang was implicated in the purchase of dozens of houses used for growing pot.
And they're protected by the sanctuary city of San Fransicko and others.
And both senators running for president voted against the Cornyn amendment, which would have established a permanent bar for gang members, terrorists, and other criminals looking to snag a shamnesty visa. Republicans underlined:
I'm the sort of guy that likes to roam, but I'm smart enough to wonder whether wearing blaze orange is enough.
oops, I forgot to add “acres”
Legalize and pot will be grown on farms by farmers instead of by violent criminals on public land.
Prohibition has turned a ditch weed more valuable than gold. A ditch weed that should be cheaper than tobacco or basil.
You don’t see Mexican cartels setting up Tobacco grows in our forests.
Cops have the best dope !
Too much profit for all concerned in the WOD. That’s why they don’t want to legalize or close the border.
Well it’s they bay area im not surprised.
Just regulate it so tax paying American farmers can grow it and take all those billions of dollars from organized crime. The better we do at policing our borders, the more marijuana we’ll see being grown here. That’s just a fact. The way to stop all this clandestine growing is to legalize it and let law abiding farmers grow it.
(and has been for hundreds of years)
Its a jobs program for cops.
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