Rat lives up a backroad in Mentalcino's weed country and Mexican drug gangs have been moving in and his kids are grown and live in the area so he doesn't want to move like liberals usually do.
Mexican traffickers control Calif. marijuana Drug cartels operate farms on public lands, hidden from view
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Growing marijuana in California was once the exclusive domain of native-born profiteers, flower children from the 1960s and enterprising potheads with a knack for horticulture. Not anymore.But over the past 10 years, authorities say, domestic producers have been gradually displaced by Mexican traffickers whose squads of undocumented workers and paid pistoleros trespass onto private property and national forest land to plant marijuana on an unprecedented scale.
Today, authorities in many parts of the state believe that 80 percent to 90 percent of the cannabis plants they confiscate from outdoor operations belong to Mexican growers. Most of them, police suspect, have ties to Mexico's powerful drug cartels, which are steadily expanding their operations in the United States.
"Mexican nationals have been branching out into heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and now marijuana. They are just taking over everything," said Special Agent Bill Ruzzamenti, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor who has overseen marijuana investigations in California.
The trend is particularly troublesome for police and property owners. With the price of potent sinsemilla at a minimum of $4,000 a pound wholesale, the pressure to safeguard crops and get them to market has leaped.
As a result, the new growers pack more firearms than their predecessors, raising the potential for violence to protect their share of California's largest cash crop.
Federal statistics show that the number of firearms seized at outdoor marijuana farms in California has increased more than 25 percent from 423 to 550 over the past five years. Those weapons range from .22-caliber pistols to military-style assault rifles.
In Northern California, Mexican national growers have opened fire on competitors, timber company employees and law enforcement officers.
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Powerful sinsemilla, the type of cannabis predominantly grown outdoors in California, now fetches prices as high as $8,000 a pound in some parts of the country.
Two years ago, forest service investigators discovered a 23,000-plant operation in the Cleveland National Forest in east San Diego County that they believe was run by Mexican nationals. It was the largest plantation found by the Forest Service in the region.
Several acres had been cleared under a canopy of oak trees. The site, virtually undetectable from the air, contained a greenhouse, electric generators, water pumps and a drip irrigation system. The estimated value of the seizure was $92 million.
Police say Mexican growers have made their biggest gains in Mendocino and Trinity counties.
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articles.baltimoresun.com
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Fed up with armed marijuana growers taking over public lands, a group of Mendocino County residents on Tuesday asked the board of supervisors to declare a state of emergency and bring in the National Guard.
“They're everywhere, they are destroying the forest,” said Chris Brennan, a Laytonville rancher and federal trapper.
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Large-scale illegal cultivators are shooting and poisoning wildlife, dumping pesticides into streams, diverting streams and taking pot shots at people who attempt to use the forest between the spring and fall, Brennan said.
“I've been shot at,” he said.
A half dozen other people at the board meeting, held in Covelo for the first time in many years, said they'd also had warning shots fired in their direction while on public lands.
“There are pieces of the county we don't go in now,” said Peter Bauer, a fifth generation Covelo cattle rancher. He said he won't be using some of the grazing permits he has for public lands because of marijuana gardens. “My livelihood is threatened by this,” he said.
Paula Fugman no longer rides horses on federal forest trails. “It's really scary,” she said.
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pressdemocrat.com
No State of Emergency for Mendocino County | High Times Your browser indicates if you've visited this link
Supervisors in Mendocino County have decided against declaring a state of emergency over "the massive marijuana gardens being grown on public lands." ... which authorities believe is primarily grown "by Mexican nationals possibly affiliated with drug cartels" ...
 hightimes.com/read/no-state-emergency-mendocino-county
More from hightimes.com
More Links ...
Mendocino Mexican Marijuana Eradication Reveals Worsened ... Your browser indicates if you've visited this link
In Mendocino County, ... says there is a connection between the illegal growing on public lands and drug gangs based in Mexico. "It is not just the grows, ... "All of the Mexican cartels have people here: La Familia, cartels from Juarez, ...
California could make Mexican drug cartels bolder Your browser indicates if you've visited this link
The reason why the cartels are as far north as the Mendocino National Forest is fairly clear. ... When it comes to organized crime, the Mexican drug cartels are rewriting the book. Legalize recreational pot in the Golden State and you could turn California into a drug cartel war zone.
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