AGENTS SEIZE POT HARVEST NEAR OJAI

Drugs: Annual Sweep in Los Padres National Forest Has Netted 7,000
Marijuana Plants So Far. Six Suspects, All Undocumented, Have Been Arrested.

The war on drugs in Ventura County was on full display Wednesday,
replete with guns, thumping helicopters and sweaty, bug-bitten troops
in camouflage scouring the rugged hillsides for the enemy.

As they have done each fall for the last three decades, county and
federal agents this week descended on another small patch of the giant
Los Padres National Forest north of Ojai, seizing piles of the annual
marijuana harvest.

By late Wednesday, after months of surveillance and several smaller
raids, machete-wielding deputies had chopped down about 7,000 mature
marijuana plants and were anticipating a total of more than 10,000 by
Friday.

In addition, authorities arrested six undocumented residents from
Mexico who were allegedly attempting to flee the plantations. "There's
marijuana in all of the these canyons, as far as the eye can see,"
said sheriff's pilot David Nadon as he directed a helicopter into a
narrow mountain channel called Wheeler Gorge.

This year's largest eradication effort focused on the
rock-and-brush-covered pass off California 33, about 15 miles north of
Ojai.

Towering trees and dense chaparral make excellent cover for pot
farming, authorities say, and black plastic piping, which can be
purchased in rolls of 1,000 feet, stretches easily to nearby creeks to
nourish plants.

"Each and every year, the growers come back ... to the forest," said
Eric Nishimoto, a spokesman with the Ventura County Sheriff's
Department. "There's not too many places that offer these
conditions."

The forest, which covers about 860 square miles of the county's back
country, has long been a popular place for Mexican drug cartels to
plant high-grade sensimia, a potent pot plant that can be worth more
than $3,000 a pound on the street.