JUST A HOUSE IN THE HILLS - UNTIL THE RAID

Calpella, Mendocino County -- The house looked like any other in the
hills overlooking Lake Mendocino: neatly painted blue walls, a
redwood deck spreading into a yard of raked dirt and stones, a tidy
shed to the side of the driveway.

Then the 12-man major crimes task force kicked in the doors one day
earlier this month at twilight, screaming, "Police Department, search
warrant!" And it became clear this was no house for living.

It had been gutted and transformed into an indoor farm for at least
270 marijuana plants.

Ranging from 1 to 5 feet high, the plants were arrayed throughout the
house beneath 27 heat lamps. A wall-size display of 130-watt fans and
air-conditioning engines blasted cold air through hundreds of feet of
piping to keep the temperature at 71.4 degrees.

And that didn't count the trailer a few hundred feet up the hill,
where a similar arrangement nurtured 250 small starter plants. Or the
50-kilowatt diesel generator in that tidy shed fitted with hidden,
insulated walls to muffle its around-the-clock roar.

All told, arresting officers estimated it must have cost at least
$100,000 to set up the house. The pot had an estimated street value
of at least $1 million.

"Pretty typical for what we see around here," said Robert Nishiyama,
commander of the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force, as he surveyed
the operation. "It's not really that big."

Authorities destroyed a record 333,000 plants in Mendocino County
last year, 100,000 more than the previous year.

Nishiyama and his team hit an operation like this about three times a
week. Nishiyama, a special agent with the state Department of
Justice, estimates that even if local law enforcement ran raids every
day, they would still only get a fraction of the market - and they
now seize less than 20 percent.

"It's everywhere," he said. "We don't even bother with the small stuff."

At the raided house, 35-year-old Jason Smith sat morosely on the deck
steps, hands cuffed behind his back. He was the only one at the house
when it was raided.

"I'm not at liberty to talk about this," he said, gazing up at the
deputy guarding him. His eyes hardened.

"I will say this, though," Smith said. "We kill people in other
countries for oil, we have pharmaceutical companies abusing people
for billions of dollars - and then you have a naturally growing herb
that can be used for medicine.

"It doesn't make sense to criminalize it," he said. "No sense at all."

Since local pot regulations were relaxed in 2000, Mendocino County
pot cultivation has exploded to new highs - and with it have come new
headaches.

Police say there has been a proliferation of home-invasion robberies,
which they blame on drug dealers ripping off pot growers. In 2000,
authorities countywide recorded 1,100 pot-related criminal offenses;
last year, there were 1,500. Fire officials estimate 40 percent of
structure fires are now ignited by super-hot indoor pot-growing lights.

"A decade ago, marijuana was really only grown in the hills," said
Ukiah Police Chief Chris Dewey. "Now it's everywhere. We've been
arresting growers who came here from Florida, New York, Texas,
Chicago - you name it. People are fed up."