DRUG CZAR SAYS POT GUARD ENDANGERS PUBLIC LANDS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Mexican cartels have taken over much of
California's marijuana farming, boosting both the potency of the drug and
the propensity for violence from armed guards protecting the crop, the
nation's drug czar said Monday.

They're planting huge marijuana plots on public lands, creating a growing
danger to hikers and hunters stumbling into the line of fire, said John
Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy, in advance of
appearances Tuesday in Reno and South Lake Tahoe, Nev.

California's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement estimated that 84 percent of
plants seized this year were controlled by Mexican gangs, in what the
bureau called "a major strategic and organizational shift" from recent decades.

"Many people think of marijuana growing as just run by a bunch of guys who
are Cheech and Chong in the movies, kind of fun-loving guys," Walters said
in an interview with The Associated Press. "These are violent
organizations. They're using violence without hesitation - it's part of
doing business to them."

The multibillion-dollar Mexican cartels have discovered it's safer and more
profitable to grow marijuana in the United States than to try to smuggle it
across the border, he said. Instead, they're often importing guards and
handing them firearms with orders to shoot at anyone coming by.

They're also branching into methamphetamine production, often using what
authorities have dubbed "super labs." And this summer authorities for the
first time discovered 40,000 opium poppies growing in a remote area of the
Sierra National Forest bordering Yosemite National Park. The poppy plants
originated in Mexico, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Richard
Meyer said Monday.

"The public lands have become a preferred area of operation for these
organizations that are increasingly violent and sophisticated," Walters
said. "People think they're hiking in a remote wilderness area, and they
come across these plots or these labs and they're run by armed and violent
criminals."