Pubdate: Thu, 06 Dec 2007
Source: Willits News (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Willits News
Contact:  http://www.willitsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4085
Author: Linda Williams, TWN Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?208 (Environmental Issues)

THE CHANGING FACE OF THE DRUG TRADE

Mexican drug trafficking organizations have expanded the marijuana 
cultivation in public lands in Mendocino County in a major way since 
2000. Based primarily on the number of plants eradicated by the 
County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team, 2007 appears to have 
been a bumper marijuana crop year with more than 320,000 plants 
eradicated this season. Mexican DTOs find it cost effective to grow 
pot in this and other rural Northern California counties for a number 
of reasons.

The penalty for growing pot continues to be substantially lower than 
for drugs of other varieties. Personnel apprehended for marijuana 
grows do not typically face long jail sentences, and one needs only 
look at arrest logs to determine Mendocino County arrests do not 
appear to discourage many from repetitively participating in the business.

The reward is high. While marijuana supply in California continues to 
be plentiful and prices are less than at historic peaks, it remains a 
very lucrative cash crop. If the plants removed by COMMET from 
Mendocino County alone had all reached full growth this year, they 
could easily have netted as much as $600 million and still 
represented only a small percentage of this year's crop. The U.S. 
Drug Enforcement Agency estimates Americans spend nearly $11 billion 
to purchase marijuana annually.

The grow sites are close to a readymade market with high 
concentrations of users living in the Bay Area. Marijuana use is 
growing within California bucking the national trend, leading to an 
expanding market. The Bay Area is a transportation hub providing 
multiple ways to distribute product to users throughout the United States.

There appears to be an increasing supply of Mexican nationals 
attached to the drug cartels willing to relocate to the United States 
to tend the crops. Many of the growers have grown the crop in the 
same or nearby locations on public lands for several years in a row, 
building an infrastructure that allows grows to continually expand 
and improve. The DTOs also have ready access to illegal aliens 
willing to tend a grow site through a successful harvest to pay the 
Mexican human traffickers who sponsored their entry into the country.

Growers living with the crop are now typically armed, prepared to 
protect their high-value crop from thieves or rival organizations and 
sometimes, law enforcement personnel. While some booby traps remain, 
most growers now rely on automatic weapons to discourage casual visitors.

The invasion of the remote areas of the county begins with a two-man 
reconnaissance team, typically during the winter season. The teams 
scout sources of water in more and more remote areas of public lands, 
likely using inexpensive satellite-based navigation systems to mark locations.

Each spring the typical four-man grow teams return to previous garden 
areas not found by COMMET raids. The groups are typically fully 
equipped with seedlings, sophisticated irrigations systems, 
concentrated pesticides and fertilizers from Mexico not typically 
available in the United States and plenty of food and equipment to 
last the summer. Teams are also dropped off to start new grow sites 
each spring.

Grow teams typically live off the land, poaching wildlife and 
diverting water courses as needed to expand the grow. In the 
Mendocino National Forest, some grows have been found with large 
overhanging tarps covering the entire campsite. Some sites contain 
exercise facilities, hammocks, tents, tree houses and barbed wire 
fences. Cooking and sleeping camp usually have a view of the 
cultivation site. The open flames pose a summer wildfire threat. Most 
grows organized by the DTOs have more than 3,000 plants although 
grows as large as 30,000 plants have been discovered. Human waste, 
garbage accumulations, compacted soil, dead trees and removal of 
native plants, pesticide and herbicide spills, poisons used for 
controlling gnawing rodents are plentiful at established grow sites. 
These toxic chemicals enter and contaminate ground water, pollute 
watersheds, kill fish and other wildlife, and eventually enter 
residential water supplies. Foresters estimate that for every 
cultivated acre another 10 acres are damaged. The cost of remediation 
is an estimated $11,000 per acre.

During harvest season, the marijuana is trimmed and dried at the grow 
site and then carried out in black plastic bags to distributors. The 
garbage and toxic chemicals remain at the grow site entering the 
environment during the seasonal rains. The disturbed soils erode over 
the winter, adding silt to the creeks and rivers impacting fish 
reproductive cycles. It also seems unlikely proceeds from the grows 
ever enter the Mendocino County economy.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Part 2 of a series on the growing involvement 
of Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the Mendocino County 
marijuana trade.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom