POLICE SEIZE NEARLY TWICE AS MUCH POT AS LAST YEAR

Oregon - Law Enforcement Has Found 2 ,000 Plants As Of September In
State's Remote, Rural Areas

Harvest season this year has law enforcement scrambling to deal with
the largest crop of marijuana in Oregon history.

From counties long known for illegal foliage to those where marijuana
is rare, narcotics agents say they are tracking and hacking an
unprecedented number of plants in remote and rugged rural areas.

By mid-September, they had seized about 220,000 plants statewide,
nearly a 100 percent jump from last year's haul of about 120,000
plants. Almost all of the crops, DEA officials say, are grown by
Mexican drug cartels expanding their California operations.

Drug enforcement officials believe that overcrowding and heavy
competition between marijuana growers in California are pushing the
cartel-run operations into Oregon, Washington and other states.

In Oregon -- which the DEA says last year ranked sixth nationwide for
most marijuana seizures (California was first) -- counties are sending
all the manpower they can afford deep into federal and privately owned
forests to track crops, chase and arrest armed growers and to dispose
of felled greenery.

While a regular haul used to be about 300 to 500 plants, now it's
1,000 to 10,000, according to the state justice department. In early
June, for example, the Tillamook County Sheriff's Office seized about
17,000 plants at one crop site east of Beaver. Most agencies estimate
each plant is worth $1,000 by the time it is dried, with stems
extracted, and packed and sold on the streets.

Yet the more county, state and federal funding they throw at the
problem (for helicopters, protective vests and firearms) the more
marijuana they find, said Ron Nelson, the Oregon Department of
Justice's marijuana eradication liaison to the DEA and state and local
law enforcement agencies. Each week during harvest season, Nelson
said, law enforcement typically busts two cartel-run marijuana operations.

Since January, narcotics officers have arrested 30 people who are
directly connected to Mexican drug trafficking organizations, Nelson
said. He and DEA officials determine those connections through
interviews with those arrested, as well as by evidence found at crop
sites.

"The problem is escalating, and a multitude of other crimes are being
committed" as crops grow, Nelson said. "There are chemicals used in
the growing, the diverted natural water of streams. There is the
public safety hazard for people who are out in the woods recreating,
running across these people in the woods who are armed and protecting
their expensive gardens."

Jackson County ranks highest for marijuana seizures to date this year,
followed by Umatilla. From January to mid-September in Jackson County,
police seized 45,349 plants, compared with 43,130 plants in all of
2006.

In Umatilla County, officials razed 29,584 plants from January through
last week, compared with that county's 2006 total of 8,000 plants.

The seizures are riddled with drama and, sometimes, gunfire. On Sept.
6, Washington County officials taking part in a seizure of 1,100
plants in the woods near Hannah Creek fired at one another before
realizing their mistake.

Among other problems, the bumper crop of marijuana is making it harder
for law enforcement departments to handle other work, such as
methamphetamine seizures, said Yamhill County Sheriff's Office
spokesman Capt. Ken Summers. The county has seized 22,000 plants this
year, as opposed to last year's haul of 1,529 plants.

"It's very hard for us to put our hands around the issue," Summers
said. "It's growing so fast, and it's becoming so overwhelming."

Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson says he assigned one full-time
staffer to marijuana seizure work through harvest season, and the
department is eradicating marijuana with 10 times the manpower it
provided a year ago. Still, marijuana crops continue to pop up in so
many places that the number of seizures may still rise next year.

Last year, Tillamook deputies seized 2,800 plants, but from June
through September of this year, they've knocked down 25,760, he said.

Those who work to end marijuana growing, such as Yamhill County's
Forest Deputy Ron Wellborn, say the work holds huge challenges. There
are the steep ravines, and grow-site workers who slip easily away into
heavy brush. Then there's the work of felling sprawling fields of 8-
to 14-foot-tall plants and gathering them into huge piles for moving
or burning.

And of course, there's always the threat of an angry grower taking a
shot, he said. Wellborn is often tipped off by hunters, but he has
accidentally walked into giant marijuana fields.

"It's a little scary, not knowing who's there," says Wellborn, a
20-year veteran and seven-year forest deputy. "It's not something you
want to do alone." When Wellborn finds a crop, he marks the location
with a global positioning device to return later with a narcotics team.

It's exhausting, sometimes dispiriting work, says Yamhill County's
Summers, especially when other needs are calling for attention.

"It's just wild," Summers said. Marijuana crops "seem to be growing by
quantum leaps. I'm not sure how we're going to deal with it. And there
are so many other things we need to be taking care of."