Pubdate: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 Source: Union Democrat, The (Sonora, CA) Copyright: 2007 Western Communications, Inc Contact: http://uniondemocrat.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/846 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) POT FARMS THRIVE DESPITE BEST CAMP EFFORTS It's not amber waves of grain that are being harvested from isolated plots of Stanislaus National Forest and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property in Calaveras and Tuolumne Counties. Instead its the long green of fast-growing marijuana. Sheriff's deputies, forest and BLM rangers and state agents with the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) have together uprooted and destroyed more than 90,000 plants so far this summer. With nearly two months still left in the season, officers have already harvested a record 26,000 plants in Calaveras County. The 64,000-plant Tuolumne County tally is still behind last year's 83,000 mark, but could rise quickly with the kind of raids CAMP has been making in the Mother Lode this year. Last Friday alone, agents raided three Tuolumne-area gardens that together hosted 17,000 plants. Indeed, the pot plantations officers have been finding this years are not mom-and-pop operations or a scrupulously attended plant or two aimed at keeping Grandpa's glaucoma at bay. Instead they are elaborately irrigated woodland farms with many thousands of plants each. In the past month the big busts have been regular front-page news: Nine thousand plants at Moccasin, 5,000 near Mokelumne Hill, 15,000 on forest land near American Camp, 8,000 on BLM land near Mokelumne Hill. The absentee landlords are said to be Mexican traffickers aimed at putting their fabulously expensive product on the streets and turning a profit of millions. Had the the plants eradicated in Tuolumne and Calaveras county so far grown to maturity, say agents, they could have sold for $100 million or more. Although Tuolumne and Calaveras counties pride themselves on vineyards, apple orchards, home-grown honey and other agricultural products, clandestine pot grown under armed guards will not be part of any Mother Lode farm tours. We don't need them and commend CAMP for doing an exemplary job of ridding both public and private lands of the plantations. If there is a down side to the effort, it's that the seizures have hardly put a stop to illegal growing. CAMP began 24 years ago with a statewide harvest of 64,579 plants. But the deterrent of hovering helicopters, aerial surveillance and vigilant agents has hardly dried up this illicit crop. Instead statewide seizures rose to 621,000 in 2004, nearly doubled to 1,100,000 in 2005 and reached 1,675,000 plants valued at $6.7 billion last year. Lake and Shasta counties, together yielding more than a half-million plants in 2006, topped the list of counties. Tuolumne ranked 12th and Calaveras 25th. Clearly, growers believe the confiscation and eradication of hundreds of thousands of marijuana plants is an acceptable cost of doing the dirty business they are in. Maybe that's because there's a young and eager market awaiting their crops. According to a 2002-03 national survey, about 3.2 million Californians use marijuana over the space of a year. Of those, 443,300 are 17 or younger and 1.2 million more are between 18 and 25. An inescapable conclusion is that much of the marijuana grown illegally in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties and elsewhere eludes CAMP agents and, via circuitous routes, ends up on the streets -- including some on our own -- despite law enforcement's best efforts. Discouraging? Yes, but nowhere as discouraging as the picture might be if CAMP pulled up stakes, its choppers were grounded and our agents were reassigned. Without the effective deterrent of experienced state narcotics agents working with local deputies and rangers who intimately know the pot-growing turf, marijuana would become a far more pervasive problem than it is today. Union Democrat editorial positions are formed through regular meetings of the newspaper's editorial board -- Publisher Geoff White; editor Teresa Chebuhar; managing editor, news Craig Cassidy; senior reporter-columnist Chris Bateman. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake