Drug agents can't keep up with pot growers

By John Ritter, USA TODAY
Thu Oct 13, 6:34 AM ET

In the waning days of a record season, a helicopter buzzes treetops here in a remote corner of the "Emerald Triangle," redwood country notorious as the USA's premier producer of marijuana.

State narcotics officers from CAMP - Campaign Against Marijuana Planting - are searching for "gardens" to eradicate and find six on a warm, cloudless day.

They strap onto a 150-foot cable dangling from the chopper, drop into the pot patches, hack down the plants and bundle them for the chopper to haul back to a landing zone.

Perhaps $500,000 worth of America's favorite illegal drug is trucked off for burial. It's not a big day by CAMP standards: 813 plants that fill a pickup bed. In this ever-growing illicit market, agents routinely find plots of 5,000 and 10,000 plants that require dump trucks to dispose of.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051013/ts_usatoday/drugagentscantkeepupwithpotgrowers

"Mexican criminals using sophisticated methods have spread the marijuana industry across California, traditionally the nation's main domestic source because of a mild climate and vast stretches of isolated landscape ideal for clandestine growing, say the authorities."

Uh yeah back in '75.

Glad we are losing this war. very glad. Wish they'd spend the wasted money on social programs.

And it looks like this wasn't wasted on anybody here.:D

I especially agree with the opinion of what a waste of effort this is. Kids are dying in NOLA and in Iraq, but this is still a priority, to make sure nobody's growing marijuana. IMO, they should be subsidizing farmers to grow this and using it to treat cancer patients.:-(

100% agreement from me.
The drug war is a massive failed policy and the only people who dont realize it have bought into the fear. Its pointless arguing with those people. Instead I just keep trying to get them to smoke a joint or eat a brownie themselves just to se if they are smoking crack a month or two later.

Marijuana farming subsidies is a great notion, but really it shouldn't just be for cancer patients. It helps with everything from depression to cramps on the lighter side, and glaucoma to cancer treatment on the heavier side. I think you probably already knew that though ;) .

We need massive change in our society or we risk going the way of the Roman Empire.

unlike the pot get ripped out of the earth, which is probably some really good herb :(

I used to live in Humboldt county. The economy in Southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties is highly (no pun intended) dependent on marijuana cultivation.

This is just a shame, and a waste of resources

on edit: I hope the radio station (KMUD or something? I can't remember) still does the helicopter reports "CAMP COPTERS ARE COMING!!! COVER YOUR PLANTS!! THEY ARE CURRENTLY SPOTTED NEAR SPY ROCK ROAD!!!"
That was so cool :)

The Drug War is nothing but a huge misallocation of resources, solving no problem and creating a myriad of problems.

I've got family members who are cops and they assure me that the drug war is a big drag on their capability to ferret out violent and property crimes.

that they are waging a war on a fucking plant. They clearly are thick,
or they'd realize that the plant is not going to attack them, and gosh
wouldn't the schoools and roads look a lot better if we weren't hiring
what amounts to special teams of helicpter based garden wreckers, people
who have nothing better to do than kill plants that other poeple have
worked hard to nuture and grow.

But that is the stupidity of the federal government and everyone
associated with it. They are so incredibly dumb, that they are LOSING
a war to a plant. Man, talk about darwinian, plant-eat-dog, devolution... :eyes:

Meanwhile, the guerilla growers are making out like bandits. The stupidity of mass growers never ceases to amaze me, but hey, their actions do keep the police occupied, which is a good thing.

Meanwhile this is just so much wasted money in a Drug War that we can't win, but are definetly losing. Time to give it up and legalize everything.

They are weeds...If you hack them down at the stem, like described, wouldn't they grow back soon? Like all weeds, don't have you to tear out the roots?

What a big fucking waste of taxpayer money. War on plants!

All male plants are weeded out so that there will be no male flowers to pollinate the female plants. No one wants seed in their bud. Seed production is not desirable and therefore there are usually not seeds to regenerate the crop naturally.

As many who have 'observed' a pot patch have noticed, even after you weed out all the males, the females will improvise and occasionally become hermaphroditic. You have to keep scanning for those little green ballsacks all through the season, even on apparently female plants, to be truly seed free.

Or so I've heard...

Yes you are so right. Their mission in life is to reproduce and almost overnight they can grow those dreaded little ballsacks. There's nothing worse than seeing that yellow pollen.

Or so I've heard....

Years ago, when i harvested a plant, it had a stem the size of my wrist.
I had to use a saw to cut it down. The machete and axe shake the buds
too much, as you don't want to damage the flora when you cut it down.

Hemp is a weed for a more tropical climate, with mild weather, long
springs and falls, lotsa lotsa rainfall and warm sunshine. In any other
climate, it is endangered and must be nurtured specially. Many sierra
growers carry in water, or set up special irrigation systems.

I will laugh when one day, all these nazi drugs police are old and
retired, and a crew of helicopter-based zealots comes out of the sky in
to their back garden and tears up his flower patch. Then he'll walk out
in the ruin of a years hard gardening, lovely flowers crushed by stupid
wankers on helicopters, wastoids who are too cowardly to get jobs at
a strip mall, to low on the food chain to work in a field; and for the
lack of honest labour, they tear up people's gardens to fuck with the
poor as an act of public thuggery.

I'd wager the plants they kill have higher IQ's.

Better than reading High Times this is great. :smoke:

on tv of the destroying of this huge cache. It was being burned. Standing there was a Mexican officer, breathing in the fumes heartily with an incredible grin on his face. That said....

This area of California has been used to cultivate marijuana crops for at least 25 years that I know of, and to blame Mexican criminals is absolutely absurb. I knew of someone who had good knowledge of these farms, and he said that the best ones were run by the CIA.

funny story...

I was annoyed w/ the "Mexican criminals" part, too...Where is their evidence?

a reporter at the scene of a pot burn, he started stumbling over his lines and cracking up. Hilarious.

* a war on some drugs;
* a war on poor, black people and their suffrage (and thus, their political power);
* a major boost to the industries involved with people processing, deforestation and the manufacture of favored drugs;
* a strike against personal freedom, and more specifically, body rights;
* yet another failed prohibition (doing nothing to reduce drug use/abuse);
* a boost to black market sales of drugs, their ingredients unregulated;
* a denial of potential tax revenue that could help ease government budget deficits;
* a way to scare abusers from seeking treatment and getting their lives back on track;
* cruel public policy indicating a cruel society and cruel government.

The War on Drugs is turning America into a "penal colony for its citizens." Gotta love the madness!

"agents routinely find plots of 5,000 and 10,000 plants that require dump trucks to dispose of."

the "guerilla growers" that others speak of on this thread aren't dumb enough to actually plant that many plants.

my theory is that these folks regularly get together and plant large fields of schwag or hemp just to keep the cops busy while they are busy with their small hydro gardens that make $10,000 per square foot per year.

gives new meaning to "overgrow the government"

I happen to believe it is 100 percent correct. Makes no sense whatsoever to plant large fields of crop outdoors anymore and it hasn't for at least 15 years.

It's always best too plant three patches. One for the cops, one for the thieves, and one for yourself.

I can't get sh*t to grow in my garden but these "farmers" grow boat loads of weed???? Microclimates???? Anyways, forgive my ramblings...

How the hell can you police something that grows NATURALLY!!? Isn't that unnatural?

Should I infer from your sn that you were a John Edwards supporter? Whether you were, still are, or not, I just have to say that I found his speech to be the best and most inspiring of the convention. And this is saying a lot, since there were so many, Clinton, Jimmy Carter, not to mention John Kerry's. They were all good, in contrast to the republicans shrill evoking of 9/11, their worst hour, which they should have hoped we'd forget, IMHO. But, after listening to John Edwards, I just knew that brighter days were ahead for our country.*sigh*

And I do agree with your assessment of the futility of waging an all-out war against a naturally growing plant. But I guess that's what warmongers do.:grr:

And we're glad to have you with us.:toast:

Rhiannon:hi:

Late breaking research from Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20051013-16581300-bc-us-marijuana.xml

Bruce

will this stupid prohibition ever end???

Fuck the DEA and their lies.

Fuck those who swallow, endorse, and spread those same lies.

Decriminalize now, and watch the economy start recovering - especially with hemp to replace the resources we're running out of.

And once again, FUCK THE DEA.

Priorities!

The misnamed Drug War is in reality a war for drugs, specifically, those produced by prescription drug companies and alcohol producers.

The DEA is the modern day Pinkertons, goons who work for the private sector, enforcing their economically mandated prohibitions. The Bush attempts to stop medicinal marijuana, for example, cannot be justified by any reason other to serve the interests of competing medicines mass produced by the pharmaceutical industry.


http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst

They seem to get everything backwards, regarding what makes real sense, let alone what is beneficial to the public, as opposed to the corporate drug industry. Making medical marijuana illegal is particularly unconscionable. Synthetic drugs don't work as well for many patients and, when it comes to alleviating human suffering, I believe all bets should be off. My Dad died of cancer. I know.;(

Cauase basically, it's really not all that illegal right now.

...you can smell the skunky wonder through closed-up car windows. The herb loves, loves, loves the Mendo/Humboldt area.

well back in the day...know anyone who stopped smokin it?

One day, in my lifetime, this stupid obsession with the evils of da bud will be gone. When the mid boomers start going blind from cataracts, and their arthritis cripples them every day, and their chemo meds start making them sick as a dog, then, they won't be able to push legislation through fast enough.

So, anybody got a light?