FULL COURT PRESS: LAW ENFORCEMENT DRAWS MNF BATTLELINE

Mendocino National Forest will become the place for the latest
showdown between growers on public lands and law enforcement with the
debut of Full Court Press last week by representatives of local,
state and federal agencies.

The new effort to take back the public lands from drug cartels and
prevent or reduce the environmental damage the indiscriminate growing
of marijuana causes is scheduled to be in place by the next growing season.

While full details are still being worked out, including how it will
be funded, representatives from all six counties involved, as well as
state and federal agencies, met last Thursday and Friday to kick off
the coordinated effort.

With Mendocino National Forest leading the nation in marijuana
growing on public lands, and signs of increasing violence in the
forest with numerous reports of people being shot at while visiting
the forest, the Mendocino Count Board of Supervisors briefly
considered declaring a state of emergency in the forest in August.

Mendocino National Forest encompasses 913,306 acres and lies within
the boundaries of Mendocino, Tehama, Colusa, Lake, Glenn and Trinity
counties. While unwilling to declare a state of emergency within the
forest, the new operation called Full Court Press will include
eradication, prosecution, mitigation and public information.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman, the sparkplug for the new
effort, hopes that word of increased scrutiny by itself will reduce
the number of grows in MNF by up to 15 percent.

Allman has firm commitments from the California National Guard to
supply helicopter support and from the US Forest Service to provide
about 30 federal officers. Grants will likely cover any overtime
required, leaving the cash strapped counties to pay the salaries of
any deputies involved.

The two United States attorneys with jurisdiction within MNF have
agreed to prosecute those found growing in the forest. Cartels
associated with grows within the forest also are responsible for
money laundering, environmental harm and human trafficking.

Allman was in Washington, DC, in October meeting with a variety of
federal agencies to line up support for this mult-prong approach to
combating the marijuana-growing problem in Mendocino National Forest.
The approach is similar to Operation Trident in Southern California.

Operation Trident, a three-county eradication effort involving nearly
450 law enforcement officers from 21 different agencies, including
sheriff's deputies from Fresno, Madera and Tulare counties and
members of the California National Guard, began in late 2009. The
operation targeted illegal grows in the Sierra foothills, primarily
on public lands involving the Sierra National Forest in Madera
County, and Cleveland National Forest and Sequoia National Forest in
Tulare County.

Sequoia National Forest led all national forests in marijuana
eradications in 2007 and 2008.

Operation Trident is still going on, but has already resulted in
federal indictments of 58 persons, including 24 convictions. By early
August the taskforce had eradicated 432,271 marijuana plants, seized
499 pounds of processed marijuana, 4.7 pounds of cocaine, three
pounds of methamphetamine, 33 weapons and arrested 97. Operations
have continued into October, but updated figures are not yet available.

Information gleaned from those arrested and at the various sites has
led to followup investigations in several other counties.