HARVESTING THE SECRET GARDENS

'Operation Alesia' Has Raided Pot Farms on Public Lands

Last week, an unprecedented collaboration among federal, state, and
local agencies began a well-publicized blitz campaign in northern
California's Shasta County to root out illegal marijuana gardens
hidden in national parks and forests - a phenomenon that occurs
statewide and is partly the result of stepped-up eradication efforts
and tighter border security.

At a news conference in Redding, officials involved in what is known
as Operation Alesia trumpeted the successes of the three-tiered
campaign, which involves at least 400 people from Shasta County law
enforcement, the National Guard, and 15 other agencies. During the
conference, Director of National Drug Control Policy John P. Walters
described marijuana growing on public land as a threat to public
safety and the environment, and referred to growers as "violent
criminal terrorists."

Slated to end July 27, Alesia has already become a model operation
and is expected to yield record numbers of seized plants in the
county while driving away illegal growers.

Officials say most pot gardens are run by organized Mexican drug
cartels who are armed and pose a threat to the public, citing
instances in which passersby were threatened and shotgun-rigged booby
traps were discovered.

"The safety of our forest visitors are paramount to this operation,"
says Mike Odle, a spokesperson for the National Forest Service.

In Southern California, eradication teams seized 157,994 cannabis
plants in San Bernardino National Forest during 2006, the second
highest count among national forests in the state. And despite
unusually dry conditions there, this year's number of eradicated
plants there could exceed last year's amount, according to Sgt. John
Ginter of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Narcotics Division. The
county's eradication team made 12 arrests last year.

"The damage that is done to the forests with these outdoor grows are
tremendous," said Ginter. His department has completed two raids so
far in rugged terrain inaccessible to most vehicles.

Law enforcement groups say 80 percent of the environmentally
intrusive marijuana gardens are located on public lands, often near
recreational hunting and fishing areas, where growers can run water
into remote areas through irrigation piping. The growers clear trees
and vegetation, use pollutant fertilizers and pesticides, and guard
the gardens round the clock during the May to September season,
leaving trash and chemicals behind. The gardens vary in size and are
often irregularly shaped to follow the contours of the landscape and
avoid detection from the air.

Operation Alesia represents a local stepping-up of the marijuana
eradication effort, an ongoing part of the state's Campaign Against
Marijuana Planting (CAMP), which between 1983 and 2006 eradicated
more than 6.9 million plants.

Funded by $180,000 in earmarked federal grants, Operation Alesia
involves 225 people on any given day, who conduct simultaneous raids.
Eight days into the operation, agents had conducted 30 raids, seized
180,169 plants (valued at an estimated $1.08 billion), and arrested
two people, said Sgt. Janet Breshears of the Shasta County sheriff's office.

Only 20 percent of gardens on public lands are found and eradicated,
Odle says. Following the eradication of a garden, National Forest
Service personnel remove irrigation piping, clean up contaminants and
trash, take water and soil samples, and replant native vegetation to
avoid soil erosion - a restoration process that cost $11,000 per
acre, according to Odle.

In addition to the federal grants, the National Forest Service
provided $100,000 to be used for land "reclamation," a scaled-down
version of restoration that mostly involves removing trash and
irrigation piping.

Removing irrigation piping makes it harder for the growers to use the
same spot next season, Breshears explains.

Law enforcement measures the success of marijuana eradication in
plant count. Last year, state agents conducted 477 raids across
California and seized a record 1,675,681 plants - 541,000 more than
in 2005, when the campaign led to 27 arrests and 29 weapons seized,
according to a report by the state attorney general's office.

"It's like 'Whac-A-Mole,'" says Bruce Mirken, director of
communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation's biggest
legalization advocacy group. "They will chase them out of one area,
and they will turn up somewhere else."

Although the state's marijuana eradication effort has become
increasing effective in terms of seizures, it has had little effect
on curbing the demand for and availability of pot.

"The problem is, this is a popular product, like it or not," Mirken
says. "As long as there is a market, somebody is going to supply that
market. [The government has] been doing marijuana eradication since
Nixon was president and accomplished absolutely nothing," adds
Mirken, who argues that eradication is a fantasy. "After more than
three decades of so-called marijuana eradication operations, it's the
United States' and California's number one cash crop."

Replacing prohibition with a system similar to alcohol policy, which
would allow marijuana to be taxed and regulated, would lead to
combined savings and revenues of $10 to $14 billion per year,
according to a 2005 study by Harvard economist Dr. Jeffrey Miron,
which was signed by more than 500 economists including the late
Milton Friedman.

"Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting a different result," Mirken
says. "We have been doing the same thing with marijuana since the
Nixon administration. The results haven't changed. Maybe it's time to rethink."