A Dangerous Crop:

MARIJUANA GROWERS ARE A RISK TO POLICE, PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENT

Troy McCoy carries a reminder in his left forearm of how dangerous a
marijuana garden can be.

A deputy with the Tehama County Sheriff's Department, McCoy was shot
four years ago with a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun used by a
pot grower to protect his plants.

McCoy and eight other sheriff's deputies were raiding a marijuana
garden early Aug. 21, 2002, in the Coast Range foothills about 10
miles west of Red Bluff, when one of the four men found in the garden
shot at McCoy. McCoy shot back twice, but missed. The grower shot
another six times, hitting McCoy once.

Other deputies made an arrest just after the shooting. Nicolas Reyes
Vallejo, 27, is now in his third year of a 15-year attempted murder
sentence at the federal Taft Correctional Institute, and McCoy is
back on the job.

Fully recovered but still carrying the bullet in his arm -- doctors
said more damage would be caused trying to pull it out -- McCoy is
part of the crew of Tehama County sheriff's detectives and deputies
who raid pot gardens each summer.

"It makes me want to get them even more," he said of the shooting.

Pot gardens on public land aren't only a problem in Tehama County.
They are found throughout the north state. And law enforcement
officers say the measures growers will take to guard the gardens are
putting people at risk, not only those who raid them but also members
of the public who come across them.

Hear 'Em Coming

Because of the danger of being shot and the difficulty of trying to
catch marijuana farmers, some counties don't go after the pot
growers. Officials just want to get the marijuana out of the woods
before it makes it to the streets.

In Shasta County, raids are usually preceded by a helicopter buzzing
the gardens, which serves as a warning to growers that officers are coming.

"I'd rather get a garden today and let someone get away than (spend)
time chasing someone and let other gardens get harvested," said Sgt.
Todd Larson, who heads the marijuana-eradication team for the Shasta
County Sheriff's Department.

Having lived in the gardens for sometimes as long as five months,
growers know the terrain much better than the raiding deputies and
police. They often disappear into the brush by the time officers
arrive. But they usually leave behind their food and camping gear.

Such was the case Sept. 19 during a raid 12 miles into the woods near
Fender's Ferry Road off Highway 299 east of Redding. The first member
of Larson's team into the garden had caught just a glimpse of someone
running into the thick vegetation surrounding the garden. Supplies
were left behind in the grower's haste to get away, including work
boots, a shovel and plenty of food.

Larson's team of four poured vegetable oil and sugar over most of the
food supply before going to work, pulling up the couple hundred
plants in the garden. While the pot plants were carried out by
helicopter using a sling line, the food was left behind but in a
condition that would kill most appetites.

Signs of a Pot Garden

As the problem of illegally growing pot on public land grows, so does
the chance people will stumble into a garden.

"If the public should come upon something suspicious, don't enter the
area. Leave and notify local law enforcement authorities
immediately," said Michael Cobbold, safety officer with the
Shasta-Trinity National Forest. "For (your) own safety, do not enter
any garden area."

Here are signs that a marijuana garden might be nearby, as provided
by the U.S. Forest Service:

. Isolated tents or trailers in parts of the forest where there's no
recreational activity.

. Vehicles on the same isolated roads on a regular basis.

. Unusual structures, with buckets, garden tools and bags of fertilizer.

. Signs of cultivation or soil disturbance.

. Irrigation piping and trash.

"If we leave them stuff, then we are just helping them out," Larson said.

Officers either take the confiscated pot to the Wheelabrator Shasta
Energy Co. power plant in Anderson to be burned or it gets buried at
landfills around the north state, he said. At the landfills, the pot
is covered by layers of trash and quickly biodegrades.

"It basically turns to mush," Larson said.

The garbage and trashed food supplies left behind on land managed by
the U.S. Forest Service usually gets picked up by work crews long
after the raids, Larson said.

Those raiding pot gardens in Tehama County share the strategy of not
leaving behind useful items for growers. Helicopters there take out
more than pot. Their nets carry away food, sleeping bags and other
supplies that could be helpful to growers.

Unlike in Shasta County, Tehama County detectives and deputies go in
first in hopes of making arrests; then a helicopter clears out the
pot. Deputies want to use the element of surprise, said Lt. Darrell
Plemons of the Tehama County Sheriff's Department.

Water and Sunshine

Although the techniques in dealing with marijuana gardens differ from
agency to agency, the problem remains the same around the north
state. The hot summers provide perfect growing weather, as long as
the growers can find a water supply.

Got sun. Got water. Got pot.

The growers aren't afraid to plant big gardens, some covering several
acres, because the surrounding land often conceals them. The same
rugged mountains, lush vegetation and mountain springs that lure
newcomers to the north state also are magnets for marijuana growers.

"The north state has a tremendous amount of mountainous terrain that
can provide canopy to hide these grows," said Gordon Taylor, who
heads the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration region that runs from
Bakersfield to the Oregon border.

Also, compared with more populous counties to the south, north state
counties have a larger number of publicly managed acres and fewer law
enforcement officers to patrol them. While grown here, the pot --
which is gaining a national reputation for its potency -- doesn't stay.

"It ends up all over the United States," Taylor said.

Organized Crime

Distributing marijuana, which is usually sent south and then east to
all parts of the United States, takes an organized effort. That
effort is provided by drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs, that
usually have roots in Mexico, although many of their main players may
live in California, said McGregor Scott, U.S. attorney for
California's eastern district and former Shasta County district attorney.

"People just think of hippies -- for lack of a better word -- out in
the woods, growing some dope," he said. "That's just not what we are
dealing with anymore. It's highly organized, highly armed, Mexican
drug cartels."

The cartels have started growing pot gardens in the United States,
rather than smuggling it across the Mexican border, because of
ever-tightening restrictions on the border, Scott said. As evidence
of the Mexican cartels, officers in the field point to the fact that
many growers arrested in large marijuana gardens are either Mexicans
or Americans who emigrated from Mexico. In Tehama County this year,
80 percent of about 20 people arrested were Mexicans in the country
illegally, according to the Tehama County Sheriff's Department. But
critics say that Mexican workers, both in the country legally and
illegally, are the default workers when it comes to agriculture, so
it's hard to pinpoint who is in charge of the gardens.

"Does that mean the Mexican mafia is growing our oranges, our
tomatoes and our beans?" said Chris Conrad, a marijuana proponent who
has been studying the plant since 1988 and often serves as an expert
witness in court cases involving the plant's cultivation.

Wherever the chain of command leads, McCoy, the Tehama County
sheriff's deputy who was shot four years ago, said authorities are
determined to stop pot growing on public land. He said he knows
first-hand how dangerous pot growers can be to law enforcement and
the public. And the bullet in his arm isn't the only bullet he thinks about.

"They pulled some out of the tree above my head, those were the scary
ones," McCoy said.