Pubdate: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA) Copyright: 2005 North County Times Contact: http://www.nctimes.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080 Note: Gives LTE priority to North San Diego County and Southwest Riverside County residents Author: Stacy Brandt Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) AGENTS FIGHT ROUGH TERRAIN TO SPOT, DESTROY MARIJUANA FIELDS PALA ---- As a helicopter whipped dirt and debris around a clearing bordered by manzanita and small trees, narcotics agents, some muffled against the dust, wrestled 200 pounds of leafy marijuana plants into a net for the pilot to lift out. The haul was the second heavy load of the morning for the San Diego County Integrated Narcotics Task Force, and part of about 4,500 plants found Tuesday on a scenic, rugged mountain in the northeastern part of the county. On the street, the plants would have been worth between $4 million and $10 million if they had been allowed to mature, agents said. In a state that leads the country in the number of marijuana plants found, more plants are seized in San Diego County than any other county in California, said Steve Reed, a marijuana spotter with the task force. And North County is the most active area in the county, he said. "It's prime growing area," Reed said. Though Tuesday's find was twice as big as expected, the number of plants seized by agents this year is only about half of what it was last year. Since April, when the growing season typically starts, agents have destroyed about 75,000 plants. The haul last year ---- the season runs through October ---- was 275,923 plants, Reed said. The number of plants seized each year usually fluctuates a bit, but is normally between 200,000 and 300,000, Reed said. In 2003, 270,263 plants were found, he said, 401,453 were taken in 2002 and 318,017 in 2001. "It's a crapshoot every year," said Reed, who flies a helicopter in areas of suspected growth to look for marijuana. Reed, also known as "The Mule" because of his ability to crawl through rough terrain, said he has been flying more this year than in the past, but simply isn't seeing as much marijuana. He said he hopes the work of his team has dissuaded people from planting in the county. "I hope that we're doing a good enough job that we're pushing them out of the area." Growers invest a lot of money and effort, and confiscation can be a financial disaster for them. Some have been cultivating the plants since March, Reed said. "You build a sand castle, spend eight hours on it; then all of a sudden the high tide comes in and washes it away," he said. "All of your hard work is gone." The weather can also affect the amount of marijuana grown and found. For example, this year's wet winter has spurred more lush foliage in the county, which can make it more difficult to spot the illegal fields, Reed said. Prime Growing Area After struggling up hills and fighting through high brush, an undercover agent looked over one of the first plants the agents came across Tuesday. He pointed out the large buds, which are the most potent and expensive part of the plant. "This isn't the weed we smoked in the '60s," he said with a laugh. The plants the agents typically find are four or five times stronger than plants grown 40 year ago, he explained before joining the rest of the crew in tearing out the 4-foot plants that surrounded them. Reed, who moved ahead of the group, had already found plants farther up the mountain that were more than twice the size of the initial find. Terrain and the amount of agriculture in the area contribute to the prevalence of marijuana growth in North County, Reed said. Outdoor marijuana growers are drawn to areas with farms and ranches because of the water needed to grow the plants. Often, the people caring for the plants are agricultural workers who siphon water from farms with stolen tubes and hoses. Agents found about a mile of tubing illegally drawing water from a nearby orchard in a field Tuesday. Some of the irrigation systems are rudimentary, but some are extremely elaborate, said Misha Piastro, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. These systems can make it easier to find plants, Piastro said. "That's their Achilles' heel," he said of the miles of tubing used by marijuana growers. They can be very organized and often hire migrant workers to cultivate the product, Piastro said. Some drug cartels plant, cultivate and distribute marijuana along with other drugs, he said. "It's like any conglomerate," he said of marijuana growers. "It's just one division of their company." Arrests are rare, Reed said, because people are seldom tending to the plants when they are seized. When the agents do find people involved in cultivation, they are usually just hired help and don't know much about the operation, he said. Most of the growth is on public lands, making locating those responsible for the plants even more difficult to ascertain. The drug-growing organizations are hard to identify and break up because most of the people who maintain the plants will not talk if they are caught out of fear of retaliation by cartel bosses, Reed said. Some drug traffickers smuggle people into the country to cultivate drugs here in order to avoid crossing the border with the bulky loads, Reed said. In the last couple of years, more and more of the marijuana seizures appear to be related to Mexican gangs or cartels, he said. Cooperation Is Key After a half-mile hike early Tuesday morning though rough, dry brush to reach the marijuana plants that Reed had spotted a week earlier from his helicopter, some of the agents shared stories about difficult raids. It was a few moments of rest before the agents, using machetes, forced their way through more brush into another field with plants so tall they towered overhead. One of the agents reminisced about a particularly grueling hike into a marijuana plot, during which the team ran out of water and had to be picked up by a helicopter. "That guy's got more stories than Ann Landers," one of the agents quipped as they bundled their find and waited for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department helicopter that was on its way to haul off the plants. The crop will be stored and documented as evidence, then taken by armed guards to a secret location where it will be burned, Piastro said. More than a dozen Narcotics Task Force agents from different local, state and federal agencies were on the mountain tearing out the plants, which Piastro said was a typical number for such operations. Personnel with the DEA, the Sheriff's Department, district attorney's office and local police agencies are involved. "Law enforcement has come to realize that cooperation is the way to go," Piastro said of the task force, which became the first in the nation when it was formed more than 30 years ago. The number of agents on the force has remained fairly steady since it started, Reed said. Through the years, the DEA has steadily added more agents and is currently in a hiring phase, Piastro said. Marijuana eradication efforts are only a part of the drug agency's struggle with drug traffickers in North County and nationwide. As one of the most widely abused drugs, marijuana is treated with the same priority as harder drugs, Piastro said, adding that any large-scale production of illegal drugs is a priority. "There's a lot of money at stake here," he said. "These guys are playing for keeps." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth