DRUG GANGS TAKING OVER PARKLANDS

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST -- Not far from Yosemite's waterfalls and in
the middle of California's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are
quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana
plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them.

Pot has been grown on public lands for decades, but Mexican
traffickers have taken it to a whole new level: using armed guards
and tripwires to safeguard sprawling plots that in some cases contain
tens of thousands of plants offering a potential yield of more than
30 tons of pot a year.

"Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they've
gone to mega, monster gardens," said Brent Wood, a supervisor for the
California Department of Justice's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement.
He said Mexican traffickers have "supersized" the marijuana trade.
Drug War Pot Farms

Interviews with law enforcement officials across the country showed
that Mexican gangs are largely responsible for a spike in large-scale
marijuana farms over the last several years.

Local, state and federal agents found about a million more pot plants
each year between 2004 and 2008, and authorities say an estimated 75
percent to 90 percent of the new marijuana farms can be linked to
Mexican gangs.

In 2008 alone, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration,
police across the country confiscated or destroyed 7.6 million plants
from about 20,000 outdoor plots.

The remote plots are nestled under the cover of thick forest canopies
in places such as Sequoia National Park, or hidden high in the
rugged-yet-fertile Sierra Nevada. Others are secretly planted on
remote stretches of Texas ranch land.

All of the sites are far from the eyes of law enforcement, where
growers can take the time needed to grow far more potent marijuana.

Farmers of these fields use illegal fertilizers to help the plants
along, and use cloned female plants to reduce the amount of seed in
the bud that is dried and eventually sold.

Mexican gang plots can often be distinguished from those of
domestic-based growers, who usually cultivate much smaller fields
with perhaps 100 plants and no security measures.

Some of the fields tied to the drug gangs have as many as 75,000
plants, each of which can yield at least a pound of pot annually,
according to federal data.

The Sequoia National Forest in central California is covered in a
patchwork of pot fields, most of which are hidden along mountain
creeks and streams, far from hiking trails. It's the same situation
in the nearby Yosemite, Sequoia and Redwood national parks.

Even if they had the manpower to police the vast wilderness,
authorities say, terrain and weather conditions often keep them from
finding the farms, except accidentally.

Many of the plots are encircled with crude explosives and are
patrolled by guards armed with AK-47s who survey the perimeter from
the ground and from perches high in the trees.

The farms are growing in sophistication and are increasingly
cultivated by illegal immigrants, many of whom have been brought to
the United States from Michoacan.

"It's amazing how they have changed the way they do business," Wood
said. "It's their domain."

Drug gangs have also imported marijuana experts and unskilled labor
to help find the best land or build irrigation systems, Wood said.

'It's big money'

Scott Stewart, vice president for tactical intelligence at Stratfor,
a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas, said recruiters look
for people who still have family in Mexico, so they can use them as
leverage to keep the farmers working -- and to keep them quiet.

"If they send Jose from the hometown and Jose rips them off, they are
going to go after Jose's family," Stewart said. "It's big money."

When the harvest is complete, investigators say, workers haul the
product in garbage bags to dropoff points that are usually the same
places where they get resupplied with food and fuel.

Agents routinely find the discarded remnants of camp life when they
discover marijuana fields. It's not uncommon to discover pots and
pans, playing cards and books, half-eaten bags of food, and empty
beer cans and liquor bottles.

But the growers leave more than litter to worry about. They often use
animal poisons that can pollute mountain streams and groundwater
meant for legitimate farmers and ranchers.

Because of the tree cover, armed pot farmers often can take aim at
law enforcement before agents ever see them.

"They know the terrain better than we do," said Lt. Rick Ko, a drug
investigator with the sheriff's office in Fresno. "Before we even see
them, they can shoot us."

Officials say arrests of farmers are rare, though the sheriff's
office in Fresno did nab more than 100 suspects during two weeks of
raids last summer.