POT SEIZURES QUADRUPLE IN L.A. COUNTY

Los Angeles County, which has seen a whirlwind expansion in medical
marijuana dispensaries this year, has notched another marijuana
milestone. The county has moved to No. 5 for the amount seized in the
state's annual eradication campaign, with 340,187 pot plants uprooted
- -- more than a fourfold increase.

Statewide, the 27-year-old effort, known as the Campaign Against
Marijuana Planting, found and destroyed almost 4.5 million plants in
41 counties, up from 2.9 million seized in each of the two prior
years' growing season. The amount has climbed steadily since 1996,
the year California voters approved the nation's first medical marijuana law.

State officials put the wholesale value of this year's eradicated
marijuana at $17.8 billion.

L.A. County ranked 11th last year. By vaulting into the Top 10, it
joins some of the state's better-known marijuana-growing counties,
including Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt, popularly known as the
Emerald Triangle.

State officials said the increase in seizures statewide probably
reflects more effective law enforcement operations, as well as
increased marijuana production. "I do think it's expanding," said
George Anderson, director of the state Division of Law Enforcement.

Chris Jackson, a regional operations commander with the state Bureau
of Narcotic Enforcement, said his team spent about 15 days working in
Los Angeles County with the Sheriff's Department and U.S. Forest
Service. One particular three-day stretch amazed him, he said. Within
an eight-mile radius of their outpost on Angeles Crest Highway, he
said, agents uncovered and destroyed a dozen gardens and about 150,000 plants.

"The sheer quantity indicates that the majority of it is going out
onto the street," he said. "As much as dispensaries are popping up
like crazy, you are still going to have a dealer walking down the
street selling it."

Officials attribute most of the operations to drug cartels that have
shifted their cultivation north to avoid smuggling marijuana across
the border and to be closer to their market. "Many of these big grows
have been either started or taken over by the drug trafficking
organizations out of Mexico," Anderson said.

Many of these operations are hidden deep in canyons or carved out of
steep hillsides in remote areas of national parks and forests,
causing considerable damage when trees are cleared and land cultivated.

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy
Project, ridiculed the effort. "Let me guess, they set a record
number of plant seizures and marijuana has now been eradicated from
California?" he quipped.

Mirken said the campaign has caused growers to move from private
lands into wilderness areas. "This is an annual exercise in futility.
Not only does it not do anything meaningful, it actually makes the
problem worse," he said.

The proportion seized on public lands increased to 76% this year from
70% in 2008.

The annual effort includes officers from numerous state and federal
agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the
California Highway Patrol, which conducted 665 raids, up from 542 in
2008. Agents made 111 arrests and found 89 weapons. Last year, they
made 143 arrests and found 142 weapons.