MARIJUANA FARM RAIDED

Plants Seized

Local, state and federal anti-drug agents raided a backcountry marijuana
plantation in Los Padres National Forest, and by Wednesday afternoon a
helicopter lifted the first of an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 plants from the
elicit garden near Paradise Road.

The pungent, leafy green plants, said to be worth about $15 million if sold
on the street, were cut with machetes and other tools. Authorities planned
to burn and destroy the crop at an undisclosed location.

They called it the largest such seizure in Santa Barbara County since 1989,
when officials found 13,000 marijuana plants near Cuyama.

The latest raid began late Tuesday, and agents who made the first foray into
the mountain garden -- dubbed "The Big One" by officials on a strategy map
- -- pursued two men who fled into surrounding brush.

Authorities searched into Wednesday with K-9 dogs but were unable to locate
the pair.

"It appears they were living on-site," said Kathy Good, a U.S. Forest
Service spokeswoman. "Very often that's the case -- local tenders who work
for people off-site."

The two suspects reportedly left behind a tent, trash and enough provisions
to last for months, along with evidence that might bear fingerprints.

Authorities first spotted the garden, strung along Bear Creek about
one-quarter milecq from Highway 154, in late June during a helicopter
reconnaissance flight, Good said. Further surveillance followed.

The garden -- interspersed among heavy chaparral -- was nearly impossible to
reach on foot and mostly camouflaged by overhanging treetops, Good said.

It appeared, she said, that this was the second summer the plants were being
grown for fall harvest there.

The plants found were said to be about one to two months from maturity,
which means they might have been dried and ready for sale by mid-September
or October.

"They're just starting to develop the flowering top, which in street terms
is 'the bud,'CA" or most potent portion, said Sgt. Stan Mathiasen of the
Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department North County Narcotics Bureau.

"These people who are growing this marijuana do know what they're doing,"
Mathiasen said.

The growers used water from the adjacent creek, hauling it by hand and using
a drip system, said Mathiasen, who added that no booby traps -- trickery
often common in clandestine drug operations -- were found in the area.

"There is evidence there were weapons in there, small caliber," Mathiasen said.

However, "there were no weapons found," he added.

In addition to the forest service and sheriff's department, authorities from
the Santa Barbara and Santa Maria police departments participated in the
raid in conjunction with the Campaign Against Marijuana Plantations (CAMP),
a statewide program overseen by the California Department of Justice.
Altogether, about 40 law enforcement personnel took part.

After agents cut down the plants, a private helicopter contracted by the
state flew bundles to Live Oak Campground where a command post had been set
up and a flat-bed truck was waiting to haul off the crop. The operation is
expected to continue today.

In general, backcountry national forest plots make inviting marijuana
plantations because of their remote locations. Summertime marijuana
cultivation is not uncommon in Los Padres National Forest, which spans 1.75
million acres in five counties.

Kentucky leads the nation with the most illegal marijuana gardens on forest
land, said Dan Bauer, national drug coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service,
who added that such forests comprise nearly 9 percent of the continental
United States.

"California would probably be a very close second," said Bauer, who was on
an unrelated West Coast trip from Washington, D.C., and attended the local raid.

Nationally, Bauer said, the forest service uncovered 4,000 plantation sites
on forest land in 1998, with an estimated 340,000 marijuana plants destroyed.