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Politicians employ scare tactics and the “T” word
By Hempology | July 20, 2007
Los Angeles City Beat, CA
19 Jul 2007
Daniel Harju
HARVESTING THE SECRET GARDENS
‘Operation Alesia’ Has Raided Pot Farms on Public Lands
Last week, an unprecedented collaboration among federal, state, and local agencies began a well-publicized blitz campaign in northern California’s Shasta County to root out illegal marijuana gardens hidden in national parks and forests – a phenomenon that occurs statewide and is partly the result of stepped-up eradication efforts and tighter border security.
At a news conference in Redding, officials involved in what is known as Operation Alesia trumpeted the successes of the three-tiered campaign, which involves at least 400 people from Shasta County law enforcement, the National Guard, and 15 other agencies. During the conference, Director of National Drug Control Policy John P. Walters described marijuana growing on public land as a threat to public safety and the environment, and referred to growers as “violent criminal terrorists.”
Slated to end July 27, Alesia has already become a model operation and is expected to yield record numbers of seized plants in the county while driving away illegal growers.
Officials say most pot gardens are run by organized Mexican drug cartels who are armed and pose a threat to the public, citing instances in which passersby were threatened and shotgun-rigged booby traps were discovered.
“The safety of our forest visitors are paramount to this operation,” says Mike Odle, a spokesperson for the National Forest Service.
In Southern California, eradication teams seized 157,994 cannabis plants in San Bernardino National Forest during 2006, the second highest count among national forests in the state. And despite unusually dry conditions there, this year’s number of eradicated plants there could exceed last year’s amount, according to Sgt. John Ginter of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Narcotics Division. The county’s eradication team made 12 arrests last year.
“The damage that is done to the forests with these outdoor grows are tremendous,” said Ginter. His department has completed two raids so far in rugged terrain inaccessible to most vehicles.
Law enforcement groups say 80 percent of the environmentally intrusive marijuana gardens are located on public lands, often near recreational hunting and fishing areas, where growers can run water into remote areas through irrigation piping. The growers clear trees and vegetation, use pollutant fertilizers and pesticides, and guard the gardens round the clock during the May to September season, leaving trash and chemicals behind. The gardens vary in size and are often irregularly shaped to follow the contours of the landscape and avoid detection from the air.
Operation Alesia represents a local stepping-up of the marijuana eradication effort, an ongoing part of the state’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting ( CAMP ), which between 1983 and 2006 eradicated more than 6.9 million plants.
Funded by $180,000 in earmarked federal grants, Operation Alesia involves 225 people on any given day, who conduct simultaneous raids. Eight days into the operation, agents had conducted 30 raids, seized 180,169 plants ( valued at an estimated $1.08 billion ), and arrested two people, said Sgt. Janet Breshears of the Shasta County sheriff’s office.
Only 20 percent of gardens on public lands are found and eradicated, Odle says. Following the eradication of a garden, National Forest Service personnel remove irrigation piping, clean up contaminants and trash, take water and soil samples, and replant native vegetation to avoid soil erosion – a restoration process that cost $11,000 per acre, according to Odle.
In addition to the federal grants, the National Forest Service provided $100,000 to be used for land “reclamation,” a scaled-down version of restoration that mostly involves removing trash and irrigation piping.
Removing irrigation piping makes it harder for the growers to use the same spot next season, Breshears explains.
Law enforcement measures the success of marijuana eradication in plant count. Last year, state agents conducted 477 raids across California and seized a record 1,675,681 plants – 541,000 more than in 2005, when the campaign led to 27 arrests and 29 weapons seized, according to a report by the state attorney general’s office.
“It’s like ‘Whac-A-Mole,’” says Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s biggest legalization advocacy group. “They will chase them out of one area, and they will turn up somewhere else.”
Although the state’s marijuana eradication effort has become increasing effective in terms of seizures, it has had little effect on curbing the demand for and availability of pot.
“The problem is, this is a popular product, like it or not,” Mirken says. “As long as there is a market, somebody is going to supply that market. [The government has] been doing marijuana eradication since Nixon was president and accomplished absolutely nothing,” adds Mirken, who argues that eradication is a fantasy. “After more than three decades of so-called marijuana eradication operations, it’s the United States’ and California’s number one cash crop.”
Replacing prohibition with a system similar to alcohol policy, which would allow marijuana to be taxed and regulated, would lead to combined savings and revenues of $10 to $14 billion per year, according to a 2005 study by Harvard economist Dr. Jeffrey Miron, which was signed by more than 500 economists including the late Milton Friedman.
“Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” Mirken says. “We have been doing the same thing with marijuana since the Nixon administration. The results haven’t changed. Maybe it’s time to rethink.”
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