SANTA CLARA COUNTY NO. 2 ON STATE POT LIST

Silicon Valley Beats Out 'Emerald Triangle' Counties In Plants Seized

Silicon Valley has more than just servers on farms these days, and
authorities are most displeased with the latest crop.

The state's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting found more pot
growing in Santa Clara County this year than just about anywhere else
in California, including any of the legendary "Emerald Triangle"
counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity, officials said Tuesday.

"In the last few years, we have seen a major change in the way that
large, illegal marijuana operations are conducted in California,"
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. "It's no longer grown
mostly along the North Coast in the Emerald Triangle, but all over the
state, anywhere there's cover."

CAMP raids netted a near-record 314,000 plants worth an estimated $1.3
billion, more than any other year except 2000 since the program began
in 1983. A fourth of the plants came from the Central Valley and a
third from the Bay Area.

Drug agents took 47,574 plants in Santa Clara County, more than any of
the 23 counties raided except Tehama, where they confiscated 54,504.
San Mateo County was fourth on the list this year with 30,409 plants
seized.

CAMP took nearly 35,000 plants in Mendocino County, 12,244 in Humboldt
and just 3,230 in Trinity. Santa Cruz County, which boasts the
nation's first marijuana-friendly hotel for medicinal users, trailed
with just 67.

But can it really be that a county nationally known for nerds grows
more weed than the woodsy North Coast region teeming with tokers?
Local officials agree it seems odd.

"Most people don't think of Santa Clara County in terms of marijuana
planting," said Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith.

State officials concede the figures simply reflect where they looked
and what they found, and acknowledge that a few big busts can skew the
figures.

Nearly half of Santa Clara County's haul this year came in September
from a 21,000-plant seizure near Mount Madonna County Park, just over
the border from Santa Cruz County.

And authorities in the Emerald Triangle say CAMP accounts for just a
fraction of total seizures.

"It's misleading," said Humboldt County Sheriff's Sgt. Wayne Hanson,
who said agents seized more than 50,000 plants from indoor pot farms
in his county, pushing Humboldt's total seizures to over 62,000. "We
have an extremely large marijuana problem in Humboldt County. It's
largely indoors, not outdoors."

CAMP Cmdr. Sonya Barna said that while indoor operations certainly are
a problem, growers favor outdoor farms because it's harder for police
to find them and make arrests.

Nearly 40 percent of the CAMP seizures were on public land, and almost
70 percent were plots linked to Mexican drug cartels. Those plants are
often overseen by migrant farmworkers who if arrested are deported
rather than imprisoned, Barna said.

State officials say that while the CAMP budget has fallen to $655,000
from about $2.5 million in the 1980s, seizures have risen thanks to
new techniques of dropping drug agents in by helicopter rather than
forcing them to hike to the farms.

CAMP, which uses helicopters to spot farms, has drawn criticism from
residents who say the noisy flyovers invade their privacy and are
excessive in a state where voters approved a 1996 ballot measure to
legalize medicinal marijuana use. Lockyer insisted drug agents are
only looking to bust the big cartels whose farms often pollute forests.

"We're not talking about little backyard old hippies growing a few
plants," Lockyer said. "These are large commercial
operations."

But CAMP critics say rising seizures are no sign of success in
snuffing out marijuana.

"If their numbers haven't gone down, I don't see how they can say
they're being effective," said Marie Mills, a lead organizer of the
Civil Liberties Monitoring Project in Humboldt County.