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.
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