Something you can debate with. Very bad news; my county has slipped all the way to 4th. Lake is first with about 350K, Mendocino around 185. But the season is still young.
Record pot busts in state
2.2 million marijuana plants seized by authorities so far this year, including 25,000 destroyed in raids this week in Sonoma, Mendocino counties
By KATY HILLENMEYER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Narcotics agents have seized more than 2.2 million marijuana plants this year in California, topping a record of 1.6 million set last year through the state Department of Justice's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.
One team of raiders removed 25,000 plants this week from the backcountry of Sonoma and Mendocino counties, clearing marijuana from two commercial growing operations in the Yorkville Highlands northwest of Cloverdale and The Geysers.
They whacked down 8,000 plants on private land off Highway 128
on Wednesday, a day after destroying 17,000 plants at The Geysers, said Sonoma County Sheriff's Sgt. Chris Bertoli, who supervises the Sonoma County Narcotics Task Force.
With a street value of $3,500 per pound, the cannabis -- prized for its buds that flower and mature outdoors in late summer and early fall -- would have supplied a nationwide black market, according to law enforcement.
"This stuff doesn't stay here," Bertoli said, after hiking steep Yorkville hillsides with 17 fellow raiders, many flown in by helicopter. "It goes out of state: Chicago, the East Coast."
Admitting that such labor-intensive raids only partially reduce access to the illegal weed, regional CAMP operation commander Barry Galloway said: "You've got to start somewhere."
Galloway oversees eradication in Sonoma, Mendocino, Marin, Humboldt, Trinity and Del Norte counties. CAMP focuses on detecting and destroying large-scale outdoor gardens during the traditional growing season, which runs from July into October.
More than $1.3 million a year in federal money supports the program, which last year conducted 477 raids in 34 counties, ridding California of plants valued collectively at $6.7 billion.
Critics question taxpayers' investment in a campaign they say exacerbates the environmental degradation and public safety threats resulting from these remote, hidden gardens.
"The solution to all these problems is to regulate marijuana legally . . . to treat it just like we treat wine and beer," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a group based in Washington.
"What they're doing is an exercise in futility," added Mirken, who lives in San Francisco. "This is a policy that does nothing other than A) provide employment for a lot of cops and drug-war bureaucrats, and B) make all the problems associated with marijuana cultivation worse."
Near the Yorkville encampment, where agents recovered a .22 rifle, a notebook with handwritten Spanish text and other evidence, raiders offered a different perspective. They found extensive drip lines feeding terraced gardens, discarded insecticide containers, trash and a makeshift water reservoir rigged from tan oak logs and durable plastic liners.
"People will say, 'It's only marijuana.' But this finances the methamphetamine trade," Bertoli said. "You think people just wake up wanting to use meth? . . . They've started with alcohol, then marijuana, and then move up the food chain."
Eighty percent, or 1.3 million, of the plants seized statewide last year were found on public land.
"Most of the gardens are run by Mexican drug trafficking organizations," said Special Agent Holly Swartz, a spokeswoman for the campaign.
Mirken pointed to a recent study ranking marijuana as the leading cash crop in California and the nation, and argued the eradication campaign has done little to reduce availability, particularly to young people.
He predicted intrusions into state forests and parks will continue, the deeper narcotics agents drive illegal growers into rural, rugged terrain.
"If there is demand, somebody will supply it," Mirken said Thursday. "To whatever extent these campaigns reduce the marijuana supply, all that does is keep the price up and inflate the profit margin . . . It guarantees that marijuana cultivation will happen in the most dangerous locations possible."
Both Mirken and Swartz acknowledge the policy debate over legalization rests mainly with lawmakers, and neither can estimate how large a dent raiders make each year in California's overall crop.
"We do not have any rock-solid numbers about what is actually out there versus what we get," Swartz said. "But if we know about it, it is eradicated."
News Researchers Michele Van Hoeck and Teresa Meikle contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Katy Hillenmeyer at 521-5274 or katy.hillenmeyer@pressdemocrat.com.
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