Pubdate: Sun, 6 Sep 2009
Source: Corvallis Gazette-Times (OR)
Copyright: 2009 Lee Enterprises
Contact: http://www.gazettetimes.com/forms/contact/letters_editor/
Website: http://www.gazettetimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2976
Author: Hasso Hering
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?161 (Marijuana - Regulation)

HOW TO END THE POT BATTLES

Last month the Marion County Sheriff's Office issued a report of a 
type that has become almost routine in the mid-valley. And it will 
remain common unless the country makes a change in its laws.

The department's street crimes unit had ripped up more than 300 
marijuana plants from a field in remote Silver Creek Canyon between 
Sublimity and Silverton. Deputies found four different pot 
plantations on privately owned land in very rugged terrain. The 
plants were from 1 to 7 feet tall. If they had been left standing 
until harvested, deputies said, they would have had a street value 
estimated at nearly a million dollars.

A few days before, in Linn County, deputies reported finding a 
smaller marijuana field and arresting the alleged grower. This one 
was not all that remote.

Since then, Linn County raided at least one other pot plantation. And 
just a few days ago, the Oregon State Police reported stopping two 
vehicles on I-5 in Southern Oregon with hundreds of thousands of 
dollars worth of marijuana in bags.

Evidently, the legalized growing of small amounts of allegedly 
medical pot has not put a dent in the illegal side of the trade.

One unusual thing about the August raid in Marion County was that 
when the street crimes unit and a SWAT team got there, they startled 
two young men, one with a rifle over his shoulder, who fled into the 
woods. The men were caught a while later and jailed, and the 
sheriff's office said they were from Mexico. (Just the other day 
Attorney General John Kroger announced getting a federal grant to 
fight Mexican drug gangs in Oregon.)

It doesn't take much of an imagination to fear that turf battles 
between rival pot farmers might end in gunplay and bloodshed.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office had some advice: "If you are in 
the woods or a remote location and come across what you believe to be 
a marijuana grow, you should immediately leave the area and contact 
law enforcement. If possible make a note of the location and GPS 
coordinates if you have them available."

The situation is not likely to get better any time soon. When there's 
a crop that grows well in the soil of Oregon's forests, and when a 
mere 300 plants can eventually be worth close to a million dollars, 
it doesn't take a genius to predict that criminals are going to try 
to grow and sell it even though it's illegal.

Over the years, suggestions have been made that Congress and the 
legislature should change federal and state law to make marijuana 
legal and tax it, kind of like alcohol or tobacco.

As long as those suggestions are ignored, criminals will continue to 
see their chance, deputies will continue to uproot fields they find, 
troopers will continue to stop the occasional couriers, and the woods 
will remain a dangerous place. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake