cannabisnews.com: National Parks Plagued by Pot Fields 





National Parks Plagued by Pot Fields 
Posted by CN Staff on May 15, 2003 at 12:25:47 PT
By Julie Cart
Source: Seattle Times
Sequoia National Park, Calif. — On the brink of the summer tourist season, officials at Sequoia National Park are confronting an ominous reality — multimillion-dollar stands of marijuana tended by armed growers who have menaced visitors, killed wildlife, polluted streams and trashed pristine countryside. Marijuana cultivation in the park has increased steadily over the past 10 years. Since 2001, however, the number of plants seized in California's oldest national park has jumped eightfold. 
The pot fields are financed by the Mexican drug cartels that dominate the methamphetamine trade in the adjacent Central Valley, drug-enforcement officials say. The officials say there is evidence that the cartels, in turn, have financial ties to Middle Eastern smugglers linked to Hezbollah and other groups accused of terrorism. "This is the most serious and largest assault on this park since we took control of the land in the 19th century," said Bill Tweed, Sequoia's chief naturalist. The park was established in 1890, one week before Yosemite was designated a national park. "To have people out there, showing up with AK-47s to greet visitors — that's not how it's supposed to be in a national park. The premise of the park as a special place is now in trouble," Tweed said. So is the idea that you can put a " 'fence of law' around a national park," he said, adding that the park is "not immune from the ills of society." The dimensions of the problem in Sequoia began to unfold last fall when park officials destroyed a marijuana crop scattered over remote mountainsides valued at nearly $150 million. "Our belief is that the Mexican drug organizations have gone heavily into marijuana operations," said Ron Gravitt, special agent in charge at the Sacramento headquarters of the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. "The overhead is much lower than running a methamphetamine lab. They are taking the money from meth and putting it into expanding marijuana growing." Most of Sequoia's marijuana stands are hidden in the steep Sierra Nevada foothills in the lightly traveled southwestern reaches of the park. However, large plots have been discovered a dozen miles from park headquarters. Sequoia and adjacent Kings Canyon National Park are managed as one park encompassing 1,350 square miles. Dennis Burnett, Park Service law-enforcement administrator in Washington, D.C., said crime has been on a "constant march" into national parks. Almost 60 percent of the marijuana plants eradicated in California last year were found on state or federal land. Drug operators target these places, Burnett said, because they know there are too few rangers to patrol vast parks. "We cannot keep up with the drug smuggling and smuggling of undocumented aliens that comes across the border through parks on a daily basis. We are aware of the connection with drug cartels. We had a ranger shot and killed last year — that was a drug thing. It's pretty outrageous," he said, referring to an incident in Arizona. In Sequoia, rangers said, visitors have encountered pot growers. One hiker was held at gunpoint briefly by armed growers, said Al DeLaCruz, Sequoia's chief law-enforcement officer. Park officials said rangers will be stretched thin this summer, searching for marijuana crops and taking care of visitors during the park's busiest season. Tweed said that because more rangers would be deployed to deal with the marijuana problem, there would be fewer patrolling park roads and campgrounds. When rangers raid pot fields in the park they routinely find filthy work camps with makeshift kitchens, latrines and trash dumps in areas designated as wilderness. Biologists report fish die-offs and water contamination from fertilizers, pesticides and poisons used by growers. DeLaCruz and other rangers said marijuana cultivators are killing deer and other animals. The way to most of the pot fields is along the road to Mineral King along the southwestern border of the park, an area rangers now archly refer to as Marijuana King. The road, a car and a half wide, is only intermittently paved. It is on this stretch, at this time of year that early-morning drops take place — Mexican nationals piling out of a van or truck, strapping hundreds of pounds of gear on their backs and heading into the hills to establish camps and prepare the plots for planting. Authorities say the workers are mainly Mexican nationals from the state of Michoacán. Eleven workers apprehended in last year's bust are still in custody in Fresno. None has been forthcoming with authorities. "They never talk," DeLaCruz said, adding that the workers are paid well — as much as $4,000 a month in cash — and they are made to understand that the welfare of their families in Mexico depends on their silence if caught. But based on wiretaps and statements from informants, officials at the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency said the Mexican cartels appear to have financial ties to Middle Eastern groups. "We have a number of methamphetamine cases where we've made a direct connection between the Hezbollah and Mexican cartels," said Bill Ruzzamenti, director of the state's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program for the Central Valley and a former agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. The agency suspects that associates of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah have been smuggling large amounts of pseudoephedrine tablets in cars and trucks across the Canadian border for sale to the drug cartels in California. More recently, the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement has come to suspect that profits from the resale of the pseudoephedrine are being used by the cartels to bankroll the sharp increase in marijuana cultivation on public land. Low-slung oaks and stout mountain mahogany formed a gray-green canopy over the chaparral-covered foothills. The natural camouflage, along with the soil and climate, provide ideal conditions for growing high-quality marijuana, which sells for $4,000 to $8,000 a pound. The rangers scrambled upward and after 10 minutes arrived at a level shelf of packed dirt. Trash was strewn everywhere. About 2,000 feet higher and across a rushing stream, the rangers came to the remains of one of the camps found during last year's bust of the $150 million crop. The rangers estimate the eight tons of marijuana seized represent only about 40 percent of the pot being grown in the park. Like the staging area below, the camp was strewn with garbage. A blue plastic bag contained dish soap and deodorant. A towel hung from an oak branch. "Nice, eh?" DeLaCruz said , waving his arm to take in the scene. "Welcome to your national park." Source: Seattle Times (WA)Author: Julie Cart, Los Angeles TimesPublished: Thursday, May 15, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Seattle Times CompanyContact: opinion seatimes.comWebsite: http://www.seattletimes.com/Related Articles:Marijuana Found Thriving in Forests http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14764.shtmlPolice See Pot Growing Turning Into Big Businesshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14603.shtml27,000 Pot Plants Seized as Raids Begin http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13632.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by Lehder on May 16, 2003 at 06:29:13 PT
"overgrow the government"
>>Like the staging area below, the camp was strewn with garbage. A blue plastic bag
   contained dish soap and deodorant. A towel hung from an oak branch. >>   "Nice, eh?" DeLaCruz said , waving his arm to take in the scene. "Welcome to your
   national park." When marijuana has finally been re-legalized and the prohibitionists brought to justice, their repulsive ignorance finally contained, I think it would be a very good idea to chain DeLaCruz and his bully prohibitionist conspirators at the ankles, dress them in orange vests and equip them with plastic bags so that they can be delivered to the mountains they now besmirch with their bigotry and pick up the mess and the trash that their rabid mental disease of prohibitionism has strewn on our parks. Beyond Marc Emery's five conditions for peace, I have always supported appropriate punishments for those who have participated in this manic persecution called 'war on drugs.' People should be reminded of the destructiveness they have caused and know that they cannot yield to comforts of easy bigotry and ignorance no matter what the rewards. People must be forced to consider their actions in terms of the value of human life, the rights of individuals, and the Constitution so that these kinds of persecutions cannot be so easily ignited in the future. Meanwhile, the more seeds that are planted in parks the better, and it's only the mad policy of prohibition that attracts ever more violent, more slovenly, more acquisitive, more determined, more incorrigible people to do the jobs of planting, tending and harvesting that are going to be done no matter how harsh the law or how snide the little minds that walk through its trash.
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Comment #7 posted by Lehder on May 15, 2003 at 18:52:45 PT
drug thing on the malpais
>>We had a ranger shot and killed last year — that was a drug thing.I've visited the limestone cliffs that overlook the lava flows of El Malpais Monument many times over past decades. The flows vary in age from hundreds of thousands of years to less than 1000 years, young enough to be a part of oral history among the tribes. The area is replete with interesting geological features such as ice caves and the world's longest "lava tubes." These latter were formed by lava flows whose outer surfaces cooled and hardened. As the flow from the volcanos dissipated, the still liquid, hotter, inner magma flowed out of the hardened outer layer, leaving the hollow tubes - tunnels of rock as much as 80 feet in diameter, miles long in the bigger flows, very dark and scary, and, some say, harboring stolen gold from the outlaw days. The longest tube twists for 17 miles through impossibly harsh terrain that can cut through leather boots in a day. You can explore these tubes yourself, but be careful - some of them are home to sidewinders, tarantulas and maybe other hazards.No weed can grow in these parts because there's no water and no soil. But it's always been a peaceful place to admire nature, spectacular and utterly inhospitable. That it's a very minor attraction without noise or crowds only makes it more refreshing, a prehistoric place without the threat or help of men. You can climb a cinder cone, rest on a lava boulder, learn to think like a lizard, and rejuvenate the ancient spirit.But recently, improvements have been made: fences, signs requiring this or prohibiting that, places where my parter and I once made camp that are now off limits, empty parking lots that were formerly good rest sites - and some officious, paranoid "rangers" who feel obligated to interview you. "Nice morning, eh folks?" The pink-faced dude, with his badge and curiousity, was an instant irritation to the still ness. We had to wonder what he was getting at; we ourselves had never been the kind to approach strangers, let alone ask questions of them. "Any questions," the shavetail pressed on more daringly than he knew, "about the National Monument?" My companion, the Swedish-Mexican soldier and outlaw known to fiction as Capt. Josiah C. Hedges, or "Edge" as I called him, spat onto the dry limestone where we had cut peyote. "Not likely, feller," Edge advised. I stepped wordlessly to the side, allowing the half-breed mobility. to be continued, someday, in Cibola County.
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Comment #6 posted by Toad on May 15, 2003 at 14:51:24 PT
Catch the Plague
Hopefully this plague will soon spread through parks everywhere.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on May 15, 2003 at 14:30:17 PT
The GCW
Yes it is but we have to snip the Los Angeles Times but we don't have to snip the Seattle Times. Cool eh?
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Comment #4 posted by The GCW on May 15, 2003 at 14:26:08 PT
The same story in the L.A. Times.
US CA: Park's Pot Problem Explodes http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n711/a09.html?397
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Comment #3 posted by Sam Adams on May 15, 2003 at 14:10:02 PT
So what's the fix?
I'd really like to hear it - all these alarmist LEO types ranting on and on, Hezbollah, Mideast, etc, etc, - what do they want us to do? How much more money will it take to get the Mexicans out? 10 times? 100 times more? Should we send the 10th Mountain Division into our National Parks to hunt down a bunch of FARMERS?  There's only one answer here - end prohibition NOW.
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Comment #2 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on May 15, 2003 at 14:01:07 PT
LTE
Sirs,  Of course our nation has a problem with criminals growing marijuana. There is a huge market for it, and our government will allow no alternative. Black market marijuana is a huge business in this country. No matter how many illicit gardens are found and uprooted, more will be planted, because the money to be made is too much to pass up. Why is this easily grown plant worth its weight in gold? It's not the plant, it's the risk associated with delivering it to the consumer which drives up the price. Prohibition has created the criminal market in marijuana with its associated violence, just like it created the speakeasy system in the 1920s. We can rid ourselves of the problem of black marketeers the same way now as we did then - not by arresting them all, but by changing the laws that put them in business in the first place.
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Comment #1 posted by Commonsense on May 15, 2003 at 12:40:16 PT
They are bringing this on themselves...
Domestic production of marijuana is bound to grow. The more they close off our borders, the more pot will be grown here to replace cheap Mexican imports. The demand is going to be met. And the pot will be more powerful as it is riskier to grow here than in Mexico so growers will be focusing on quality over quantity. Powerful pot brings in a lot more money than medicore Mexican brick weed. If they'd legalize and regulate the marijuana markets they wouldn't have to worry about criminals in the forests with guns. 
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