POT SQUAD CONCLUDES RECORD YEAR

Marijuana eradication efforts in San Mateo County set records this year,
thanks largely to state helicopters that let officers drop into fields
instead of hacking through brush.

San Mateo County authorities who locate and destroy outdoor marijuana farms
ended a record-setting season last week by adding another 832 plants to
their total -- an estimated 13,500 plants.

Officers were still recovering Friday from a grueling day of hiking and
hacking underbrush to get to the site.

``They've had enough pot for a while. They're probably still scrubbing off
the poison oak,'' said Dan Oates of the county's Narcotics Task Force.

The grove of 4-foot plants found last week was hidden among the dense brush
of the Crystal Springs Reservoir near the junction of Highway 92 and
Interstate 280. The crop grew less than a mile north from the spot where,
earlier last month, agents found the largest marijuana farm in San Mateo
County history: 12,163 plants standing 6 to 8 feet high.

``That was a humdinger,'' Oates said.

A team of about a dozen people from local, county and state agencies have
worked to remove marijuana plants from remote wilderness areas near the
coast and in the San Francisco watershed near Crystal Springs during this
year's growing season.

As in most cases, guards camped at the recently discovered sites slipped
away as agents moved in. But the task force is using personal papers found
at a campsite during last month's big find to try to identify the growers,
said Donald O'Keefe, who leads the unit.

The task force has been able to eradicate all of the county's outdoor
groves they knew about this year, despite being low on personnel and funds,
O'Keefe said.

This year's success is due in large part to the use of helicopters to drop
agents into marijuana farms that have been previously identified by park
rangers or hunters who stumble on them.

``We've been trying to get more helicopter time,'' O'Keefe said last week.
``We only have a certain amount of time each year.''

Without the helicopters, officers must navigate steep ravines and cut their
way through dense, thorny manzanita bushes.

``We have people go through a survival-type school. But it's very hard
work,'' O'Keefe said.

Despite the effectiveness of using helicopters, California's 58 counties
must share the helicopter time provided by the state's Campaign Against
Marijuana Planting. ``If we get more time, we take away someone else's,''
O'Keefe said.

The task force got a break last week when another county canceled, but,
unfortunately, the weather wasn't so cooperative.

Fog Thursday morning made it impossible for the team to be taken in by
helicopter. Once the fog lifted, agents were able to use the helicopter to
airlift the plants out.

Thursday's find is likely to be the last of this year's growing season,
which ends in a few weeks. For now, the task force will return to focusing
on indoor plantings and on other kinds of illegal drug production.

For O'Keefe, that's just as well.

Finding more groves this year would likely mean doing it without the help
of a helicopter, O'Keefe said: ``There's no dope that's worth anyone
getting hurt.''