By Gary C. Kuncl

When most of us think of Central Valley agriculture, we see cotton, alfalfa, citrus, milk, and nuts. But there’s an even bigger cash crop hereabouts. Marijuana. And much of that marijuana is grown in your national parks and in your national forests.

Most of the people who run those farms—who hire the help, buy the seed and equipment, and reap huge profits—are violent gangsters headquartered deep in the heart of Mexico, according to Fresno County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Rick Ko and Tulare County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Mike Boudreaux. These gangsters are the same people who are currently engaging in bloody guerilla warfare against the Mexican government.

The heads of the major Mexican drug trafficking organizations have even agreed among themselves which portions of your American public lands each group can claim as their own “turf,” where they can farm for profit.

Lt. Ko and Lt. Boudreaux have extensive experience dealing with illegal marijuana gardens in the National Forests and Parks. These men are intimately familiar with the Mexican drug lord connection and know how they run their operations.

Here is how it works. The major drug traffickers assign agents, mostly undocumented immigrants, to hike throughout our vast wilderness areas identifying sites for growing marijuana. They look for remote, little-traveled sites with water nearby. Other agents for the drug lords recruit men in Mexico to enter our country illegally to grow and harvest the marijuana product, according to Lt. Ko and Lt. Boudreaux.

Still other handlers transport these cultivators to each growing site in our wilderness areas. By carefully selecting vehicles, clothing, and camping equipment, they strive to blend in with legitimate hikers and campers. The crooks are equipped with two-way radios, cell phones, and sometimes even their own surveillance cameras. They also carry in food, supplies, irrigation equipment—and always firearms.

Periodically, other operatives bring in food and other supplies for the cultivators who will live there for up to four months.

The drug lords in Mexico hide behind ranks of lower status workers, few of whom know each other. The drug lords do this to seek insulation from detection by the authorities, according to Lt. Ko and Lt. Boudreaux.

After reaching the garden site, the cultivators clear the area, plant the seeds, and maintain the plants. In so doing, they destroy native plant life, denude hillsides, and install complex irrigation systems. The handlers direct the cultivators to use firearms, if necessary, to protect the marijuana. In fact, shooting incidents between cultivators and the authorities are on the rise, according to Special Agent Michele Gregory of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.

When the plants have matured, the cultivators harvest and carry the product to a predetermined point, using large backpacks. Each pack can hold up to half a million dollars worth of product. From there, the marijuana enters a massive and efficient distribution system and is sold to hordes of eager American customers whose dollars support the whole nasty business.

Save Our Sierra

For a number of years California law enforcement agencies have been seeking-out and raiding the illicit gardens. Most often, single departments have taken on this daunting and expensive task alone. However, some raids are large, multi-agency operations involving local, state, and federal officers.

A case in point is Operation SOS (Save Our Sierra), recently coordinated by Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims. More than 300 officers, representing seventeen local, state, and federal agencies, gathered for a general briefing on July 12. There, Sheriff Mims outlined her holistic approach to the operation: “education, prevention, investigation, removal, and reclamation.”

Following the briefing, the group broke into smaller operational units and were assigned their respective missions. They formed raid teams that would drop into illicit gardens via helicopter and road teams to scoop up any suspects who might have escaped the immediate areas. Medical teams were also on-hand in the event of injuries. And finally, a team of dedicated citizen volunteers—members of the High Sierra Trail Crew—was deployed to help remove the hazardous materials and cultivation equipment. Sworn officers would remove the actual plants.

Operation SOS began early the following morning. Over the next ten days more than sixty-one gardens were targeted within the Sequoia National Park and National Forest territories. This number would later increase to seventy-three gardens.

I flew in to one marijuana garden site on July 21. We took off from Fresno International Airport in a Sheriff’s helicopter, piloted by Deputy Chris Osborne and Sergeant Joe Rascon. We flew over housing tracts, ranch grazing lands, and into the Sierra Foothills. We then went higher and higher into the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. After some stimulating maneuvers, we landed at a staging area near Italian Creek in Fresno County.

Guided by a young deputy sheriff, we labored up a long, steep drainage at the bottom of which was Italian Creek. All was thick underbrush, large boulders, and scrub trees. About forty-five minutes later, we reached the site. A multi-agency squad of officers was occupying the area to guard the garden.

A canvas lean-to, built into the hillside, provided shelter and concealment for the suspects. On a table constructed of cut tree branches were all the comforts of home. Uneaten chili filled an iron pot. On the table sat Betty Crocker Pancake Mix, Coffee Mate, salsa, tortillas, and fresh vegetables. A box of rodent poison was near the food. A half-sliced tomato showed the suspects had departed in a hurry. Trash was strewn about the area. The suspects had dammed the creek, creating a reservoir from which they drew water for the plants.

According to the on-scene officers, the suspects have every advantage in evading arrest. Having lived there, they know the terrain. They often have spotters stationed on the high ground. And they have prepared escape routes through the thick underbrush. On the other hand, raiding officers are new to the territory and face extreme hazards in pursuing the suspects.

At the end of the operation, Sheriff Mims announced that the project had thus far netted 402,000 marijuana plants with a street value of $1.6 billion. Officers arrested ninety-one suspects and seized thirty-two guns. They also seized sixteen miles of irrigation pipe, twenty-nine propane tanks, 2,500 pounds of fertilizer, 10,000 pounds of trash and fifteen pounds of pesticide. So important was this raid that the Federal Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowski, spent two days in Fresno County and visited a marijuana garden in the mountains. He had high praise for the operation.

Growing Damage

Some might ask, “Why spend so much of our limited public funds to eliminate the growing of a drug that may someday become legal?” One answer is that general cultivation and use of marijuana are still illegal. Moreover, it is insulting to have gangsters exploiting America’s natural resources for their profit.

And lest we forget, these illegal gardens are put there at the cost of serious environmental damage. The illegal growers dam creeks to facilitate watering the plants. They kill endangered and game animals for food and sport. And they foul the waterways and hillsides with fertilizers and poisons. According to Kevin Hendricks, Chief Ranger of the Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, “It costs at least $7,000 to $12,000 of our tax money to restore and reclaim each acre of land” despoiled by marijuana cultivation.

Another point: Today’s marijuana is much more potent than in past years. The critical measure of marijuana’s potency is the percentage of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) in each bud of the plant. According to a 2008 study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, THC content in marijuana was only 1 to 2 percent in the 1960s. Today the THC load is a massive 27 to 30 percent. The long-term effects and dependency resulting from smoking this new plant are not yet known.

Moreover, you might drink water from a stream that has been polluted by fertilizers and other toxic substances used by the cultivators to accelerate plant growth. According to Warden Pat Foy of the California Department of Fish and Game, the suspects use an average of 1,000 pounds of fertilizer to feed 10,000 marijuana plants—and that is an average sized “pot” garden. Also, much of the water diverted or polluted by these people would otherwise have reached the Valley floor to support legitimate agriculture.

But the most serious consideration is the danger presented to officers and the general public. This is not a victimless crime. Imagine yourself—or one of your children—hiking through the wilderness and stumbling upon one of these gardens. You could activate a “booby trap” or be injured or killed by one of the armed suspects. And imagine what would happen if a ranger or game warden should encounter heavily-armed suspects carrying millions of dollars of product out of the forest. There would be a deadly confrontation.

Sheriff Mims praised the work of all officials, from all over the country, involved in Operation SOS. “Without them,” she said, “We couldn’t have done it. … We took away a lot of (the drug lords’ and their helpers’) money; we hurt them badly.”

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