Pubdate: Fri, 09 Oct 2015 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2015 Associated Press Contact: http://www.utsandiego.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386 Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area. FEDS RAID ILLEGAL COLO. POT GROWS Investigators Are Finding Operations in National Forests DENVER (AP) - Colorado's high-country chill makes it a tough place to grow marijuana outside. But federal authorities say legalization has emboldened pot growers into planting weed on the state's sparsely populated federal lands, often for shipment to other states. Investigators are cracking down on illegal growers after discovering more and bigger operations in national forests and other federal land throughout the state, U.S. Attorney John Walsh said on Thursday. Authorities have raided an unusually high number of marijuana grows since late August, including five on remote stretches of federal land and a sixth on private property. Local and federal authorities seized more than 20,000 pot plants and arrested 32 people, the most Walsh said he has seen facing federal marijuana-related charges in Colorado at one time. "We've seen people come into Colorado and just set up large marijuana cultivations, perhaps with the feeling that, because there's a lot of marijuana activity in Colorado, they wouldn't be noticed," Walsh told The Associated Press. Most of those arrested are from other states or countries, including Cuba and Mexico. Some are drug traffickers, and some were growing marijuana and shipping it to other states, including Florida, either by car or UPS. The U.S. Justice Department has threatened to intervene in legal pot states that do not take adequate steps to keep the drug from going to criminal cartels, being diverted to other states and growing on federal property, among other conditions. But Walsh said his focus is on drug traffickers, rather than the state of Colorado, which he said is trying to make its regulatory system work. Colorado authorities find pot grows on public lands toward the end of every summer, when the plants are harvested, Walsh said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom