MARIJUANA IS BIG BUSINESS IN REMOTE FOREST

Patrolling some of the most remote forest roads in the north state,
DeWayne Little doesn't see many speeders.

So the state Department of Fish and Game warden was surprised to see
a white Jeep barreling toward him on a mid-September morning. The
driver didn't see Little's pickup, and Little had to swerve to avoid
a collision.

"Slow down," Little yelled out his window.

The Jeep stopped.

Little got out of his pickup and walked over to the Jeep, prepping a
speech on the dangers of speeding on forest roads. When he got to the
driver's window, he smelled a strong, sweet, skunky scent -- marijuana

His impromptu driver's ed class had turned into a drug bust.

Harvest Time

The past 2 1/2 months have been harvest time in the north state. But
this crop won't make its way to the produce section at the grocery
store or be sold by the roadside. It's a hidden harvest -- one made
after months of back-breaking work.

Hauling gardening tools, irrigation lines, bags of fertilizer and
camping gear. Cutting a place for plants to grow, hoping no one will
notice. Daily watering. Daily guarding. Trimming, clipping and drying
thousands of plants -- all to produce pot.

Little had come across two men taking pot out of the public forest
where it was grown. Their near-collision occurred Sept. 16 more than
a dozen miles into the woods on Fender's Ferry Road off Highway 299
east of Redding. In the Jeep were four garbage bags covered in dust
and stuffed to the brim with 19 pounds of marijuana buds.

Such a haul in a city would be a big bust, but in the forest it's a
small find. Over the past decade, north state law enforcement
officers said, marijuana-growing operations have increased in size,
organization and number.

"The perception is that marijuana cultivation is done by old
hippies," said Alan Foster, a special agent with the National Park
Service who works out of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. "The
situation we are now faced with is entirely different than that."

Near and Far

The gardeners are almost always Mexican nationals, brought to the
United States illegally simply to grow marijuana for Mexican drug
cartels, Foster said. Sometimes they start work less than a day after
making it across the border.

Foster and other law enforcement officers who raid pot gardens in the
north state said growers choose public land for the gardens because
private land can be seized if its owners are involved with the
growing. Also, privately held timberlands and other properties are
visited much more often than many areas that are owned by the public.

"A lot of the places that they are growing on are these dry, nasty
hills that mom, pop and the kids are not going to go hiking on," said
Dave Burns, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) who spends his summer and early fall raiding gardens in the north state.

Some gardens are remote, more than a rough hour's drive from
pavement. Others are closer to civilization, such as a plot
discovered this year within a half-mile of Shasta Dam, hidden in the
manzanita tangles below its overlook. Gardens were also found close
to a popular boat dock and near a new hiking trail at Whiskeytown.

Though Whiskeytown Lake and its surrounding trails are visited by
more than 750,000 people each year, vast marijuana gardens have been
found tucked in the recreation area's rugged terrain.

The problem isn't one just for the Park Service.

The U.S. Forest Service, BLM and north state sheriff's departments,
along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the state
Department of Justice and other agencies, are all trying to stop pot
growing on public land by raiding the illicit gardens. The effort
keeps officers busy with raids throughout the growing and harvest
season -- from late spring to mid-autumn.

But they say they're not keeping pace with the number of gardens.

"We are swimming against the tide," Foster said.

Growing Problem

Those who raid marijuana gardens say the numbers increase each year.
Ross Butler, assistant special agent-in-charge at the BLM's
Sacramento office, said he first started seeing large marijuana
gardens on public land in the early 1990s.

"Each year (since) it has been a little bit more and a little bit
more and a little bit more," he said.

This year, the Shasta County Sheriff's Department led about 40 raids
on marijuana gardens within the county, said Sgt. Todd Larson. Last
year, there were about 30 raids.

He thinks growers are planting more gardens each year and the
increase is real -- not the result of more narcotics officers
searching more land every year.

"If they want to harvest more, they want to plant more," Larson said.

The size of individual gardens has ballooned, too, Foster said. Pot
growing used to be done in small, secluded gardens that the growers
visited occasionally. Now, there are virtual plantations of pot,
covering swaths of land and watered by irrigation lines fed by
creeks. A typical pot garden in the late-1980s and early '90s had 100
to 1,000 plants, according to the Forest Service. Nowadays, the
gardens have 1,000 to 30,000 plants, or more.

These plots have live-in gardeners, who tend the plants and sometimes
guard them fiercely with assault rifles and handguns, Foster said.
Most growing seasons are now marked by at least one incident of
guards shooting at a member of the public or at a law enforcement
officer, he added.

Late in September, a hunter, looking for game in a remote part of
Mendocino County, said he stumbled onto the edge of a marijuana
garden. Four men tending the garden pointed rifles at him and opened
fire, according to the Forest Service, but the man escaped without being shot.

Evading Capture

When sheriff's deputies and police officers raid the gardens, the
growers often don't put up a fight; instead they run, most times getting away.

Arrests in the gardens don't happen often, mostly because of the
terrain, Foster said. Having lived in the gardens for months, the
growers know the land much better than the officers do.

"They know all the rabbit trails," Foster said.

Marijuana growers who live in the gardens usually set up tents or
other shelters for sleeping and a kitchen for cooking. Their trash
sometimes gets buried, sometimes is left in a pile and often is found
by curious bears, Larson said.

They also often leave behind their tattered tents, used sleeping
bags, blackened stoves, empty propane tanks, worn shoes and
still-sharp tools -- all that really needs to go out is the pot.

As harvest time approaches in the fall, the workers prepare the pot
to be carried out in duffel bags and backpacks. They usually
rendezvous with drivers to get the marijuana to the streets.

New Worry

Little, the north state fish and game warden, came across pot that
was headed to market. While the pair of Mexican nationals in the Jeep
weren't armed, he has had run-ins with people who were. He said he's
lucky that those growers chose to run rather than get into a gunfight.

With the pot garden problem continuing to grow, Little said many
hunters, hikers and others looking for recreation in the woods are
also worried about the marijuana growers and whether they're armed.

"It used to be the worst thing they had to worry about was getting
shot by another hunter, now they have to worry about marijuana
(gardeners)," Little said.