DRUG USERS LINKED TO TIMBER THEFTS

OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST, Wash. - Some drug addicts are finding a new way to
fund their habit. They're chopping down ancient trees and selling the wood,
authorities say.

A massive western red cedar, 7 feet across, had survived wind and wildfire
for about 400 years. It was one of more than 40 old growth trees
authorities believe were illegally destroyed by methamphetamine users in
rural western Washington, The Seattle Times reported Sunday.

Six men from Grays Harbor County were charged recently with first-degree
theft from forests.

They were accused of taking cedar from several sites in the Olympic
National Forest and on land owned by the state and Weyerhaeuser Co. on the
southern side of the peninsula last year.

It's not easy for the Forest Service and authorities to patrol the forests.

That's why the woods have become a place drug users feel they can get away
with their thefts, officials say.

"You know where bad guys go to do bad things." said Jay Webster, patrol
captain for the Olympic and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie national forests. "They
go to the woods 'cause there's no cops."

Along with others who weren't charged, the six men are believed to have
stolen wood from dozens of sites and cut down at least 19 old growth trees
in the national forest, often to pay for their drugs.

From madrona trees, the addicts chop burls, which appear as inlay in the
dashboards of luxury cars. Cascara bark is sold as a natural laxative.

The number of crimes and other incidents on national forests and grasslands
has doubled in the past five years, but the number of Forest Service
personnel and investigators has remained about the same.

Between 1996 and 2000, only 700 officers and investigators were assigned to
the nation's 192 million acres of forests and grasslands.

In northwest Washington's two national forests, 2,936 incidents were
reported in the past fiscal year on 2.3 million acres.

That's a 30 percent rise from five years ago.

Losses on public lands in Washington alone are more than a million dollars
each month, according to Dennis Heryford, chief investigator for the state
Department of Natural Resources, which oversees more than five million
acres of state land.

The U.S. Forest Service dealt with 285,000 incidents ranging from car
accidents to investigations of major drug cartels in the fiscal year 2000
alone.

That was a 98 percent increase since 1996.

Although Forest Service officials have not entirely pinned down the extent
of the problem, they know drug-related cases are growing.

"We really have no idea what's going on, just because it's such a wide open
place," said Dan Bauer, the Forest Service's national counter-drug program
coordinator.

Methamphetamines also have brought another worry as mobile labs in forests
damage streams and rivers with toxic byproducts.

When logging was at its height in the Olympic National Forest, authorities
focused their attention on large-scale theft by timber companies. Now that
attention has shifted to drug addicts.

Grays Harbor County, on Washington's coast, is used to people taking trees.

"We've always had more money stolen with chain saws than with guns," said
county undersheriff Rick Scott.