AGENTS DESTROY ANOTHER POT FARM

3,600 Plants Found In Remote Location In
Record Year For Operation

California's continuing war on marijuana arrived on foot and by
helicopter yesterday at a steep, muddy hillside laden with poison oak,
thick brush and leafy green cannabis.

State and local narcotics agents found 3,600 plants nearly ready for
harvest on the no-name remote hill straddling the San Benito-Fresno
county line. State officials said it was yet another large farm that
has replaced the smaller pot farms of years past.

Agents last week destroyed nearly 50,000 marijuana plants on a farm in
San Benito County, the second-largest bust in state history.

``These operations are definitely a commercial enterprise,'' said Gil
Van Attenhoven, operations director for the state's Campaign Against
Marijuana Planting, as agents chopped down marijuana plants with
machetes. ``We focus on commercial growth. It's big business.''

This is CAMP's most successful season in its 17-year history. So far,
agents have discovered about 200,000 plants in California, worth
hundreds of millions of dollars, Van Attenhoven said.

The previous high was 166,000 plants in 1985.

With the big busts in the news, state justice officials invited the
media yesterday to tour a pot farm they discovered earlier by
helicopter. The result was a lesson in tenacity -- of both the growers
and narcotics agents.

Agents packed reporters into four-wheel-drive vehicles for the ride
up a dirt road in the Coastal Range west of Coalinga. Ranchers run
some cattle in the area, but it's mostly wild acreage of steep hills
and narrow valleys.

At one nondescript turn, agents dressed in camouflage and packing
sidearms parked and led the way through a slippery maze of poison oak
and brush. The farm could be smelled but not seen.

A few hundred yards down the muddy hill was the farm -- really a
series of small clearings connected by narrow footpaths.

Every few yards stood a well-tended marijuana plant. A black
irrigation hose snaked through the site, a hose that agents suspect
was hauled there by a low-paid illegal immigrant laborer hired to care
for the plants and protect them from thieves. Growers cannot call the
police for help.

Carved into the hillside was a perch for a tent. Nearby were cans of
peaches, tuna and corned beef, a sack of sugar, noodles and -- looking
most out of place in such an isolated spot -- a pizza box.

Typically, only the bud of the plants -- the most potent and most
profitable part -- are harvested. But here, agents were bundling up
entire plants in a net, which was hooked to a cable dangling below a
helicopter to be hauled away for burning or burial.

Agents have not arrested anyone in connection with this garden, said
Bob Cooke, an agent with the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. Cooke
wore fatigues and, with a bit of irony, a gold earring in the shape of
a marijuana leaf.

``They hear our helicopters and they don't stick around,'' he said of
the laborers.

This farm was planted on private ranchland. Cooke said the pot farmers
go to extremes to avoid being spotted, often hiking for miles at night
to avoid roads.

Most of the farms in the area are run by Mexican drug rings, Van
Attenhoven said. Once harvested, the marijuana could be shipped
anywhere in the country, he said. The weed grown on these farms is
typically sold for recreational use, not medicinal use, Van Attenhoven
said.

In 1996, California voters approved the use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes. Meanwhile, groups like the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws have criticized CAMP raids in the past as a
waste of taxpayer money.

Van Attenhoven defends the program.

``This is private property. They're destroying the environment and
they're going to make millions and millions of dollars,'' he said.
``Marijuana is still illegal.''