Drug czar visits Tulare pot site New program will raid marijuana gardens of Mexican drug cartels.

Fresno Bee ^ | Aug. 5, 2008 | Lewis Griswold

[AuntB]

The nation's drug czar chopped down marijuana plants growing deep inside the Sequoia National Forest in Tulare County on Tuesday.

John Walters.... came to California to bring attention to a new locally coordinated, but partly federally funded, marijuana eradication program to raid marijuana gardens planted on public lands by Mexican drug cartels.

U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott joined Walters in a helicopter ride to a remote location to remove plants, then both spoke at a news conference in Visalia.

Scott said those arrested for growing 1,000 or more marijuana plants on public lands face minimum 10-year terms.

Mexican drug cartels are coming to the United States to grow marijuana because of tightened border security, Walters added.

The raids, using helicopters from the Air National Guard and involving about 220 law enforcement agencies, have targeted 63 gardens, the Sheriff's Department said. An additional 20 sites have been identified, but are still to be raided. The operation started in late July and will continue until all have been raided, officials said.

So far, 340,685 plants have been discovered, and 36 people arrested. Most of those arrested for cultivating marijuana on federal lands are Mexican nationals, Scott said.

".... I want you to know this is not the marijuana of the 1980s," he said. The marijuana being eradicated in national parks "is not something raised by some retired hippie."

[AuntB]

This entire drug war has become a joke. Like the spot about this drug czar and the irradication of these pot plants...helicopters....batf....big expensive show for sure.....

If they put those resources on the border, they wouldn’t need them on our public lands.

It’s all quite absurd, for sure.

[wolfcreek]

Well, at least we know we have the best soil and climate in North America for growing pot. Otherwise they wouldn’t go to all the trouble.

[TKDietz]

We just need to legalize it and regulate production and distribution. Tax paying law abiding American farmers could be growing this out in the open on their farm land. There would be no need to grow it in our forests. There are billions of dollars a year worth of marijuana being grown in California alone. Of course this business is attractive to Mexican organized crime. The government last estimated that between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons of marijuana are available on our streets in a given year after they seize all they are going to seize. There are many billions of dollars to be made. We need to legalize it and take those billions and billions of dollars away from the criminals and allow hard working decent tax paying Americans to earn it without causing all the problems these criminals cause.

[Nate505]

Yeah, they’ve been cracking down on pot farms for decades now. Maybe in another hundred decades they’ll be successful!