Pubdate: Sun, 15 Jul 2007
Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA)
Copyright: 2007 Record Searchlight
Contact:  http://www.redding.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/360
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

COUNTY STRIKES OVERDUE BLOW WITH 'ALESIA'

Hype about "Operation Alesia" aside, the concentrated effort against 
backwoods marijuana growing in the north state is overdue, and Shasta 
County Sheriff Tom Bosenko deserves credit for organizing the campaign.

Pot planters have hidden their gardens in California's forests for a 
generation or two, but the scale of the illegal operations has 
increased dramatically in the past decade and especially in the past 
couple of years.

Following an old agricultural maxim -- "Get big or get out" -- 
growers have hidden networks of tens of thousands of plants out in 
our watersheds. In Shasta County, the Whiskeytown and Lake Shasta 
areas have become particularly popular.

The figures for seizures speak for themselves. In 2006, the statewide 
Campaign Against Marijuana Planting uprooted nearly 1.7 million 
plants. That is 18 times larger than the number drug agents found in 1996.

Are law enforcement's technology and tactics better? Perhaps, but the 
growers' are, too.

Drug agents say the change in size stems from a change in their 
management. Mom-and-pop growers, they argue, have lost ground to 
Mexican cartels that find growing marijuana in the United States is 
easier than smuggling it across the border.

Those cartels are "terrorists" to John Walters, the federal director 
of anti-drug policy, who visited Redding on Thursday.

That language sounds like ridiculous hyperbole until you look at the 
Mexican gangs' record of killing news reporters, police officers, 
prosecutors and judges, not to mention their criminal rivals.

Has that violence spread to Shasta County? Thankfully no, but if the 
cartels find a friendly northern climate, it's easy to predict what 
will sprout in the long run.

Not just a criminal problem, industrial-scale marijuana growing in 
our parks and national forests is also an environmental hazard, and 
the current campaign is placing a new emphasis on cleaning up lands 
as well as tearing out pot plants.

It was a shock to learn that drug gardens' messes were often left in 
place -- even irrigation pipes, which let growers replant the same 
plots the next year.

Bosenko and Forest Service officials said tight budgets have made 
cleanup a low priority in the past, but that the problem has grown 
serious enough to demand more attention. We hope the focus on 
reclamation lasts longer than the two-week run of Operation Alesia.

Not everyone thinks marijuana deserves all this fuss, and in some of 
our neighboring counties over on the North Coast, the drug is all but legal.

You could debate priorities and root causes all day, but the bottom 
line is there's no reason to let organized crime take root in our 
recreational areas.

In Roman times, the battle of Alesia was a decisive turning point in 
Julius Caesar's wars against the Gauls in what is now France. No 
memorable victory will ever end the war on marijuana, but most north 
state residents would happily settle for pushing the front lines elsewhere.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom