FruityBud
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Sheriff's deputies and state drug agents ripped out marijuana plants worth more than $1 million from an illegal garden in a remote area of the Soquel Demonstration Forest on Monday, but not before the growers had harvested about half of the pot and fled.
After the law enforcement crew hacked down about 4,700 budding plants, a helicopter hauled out five large nets of green shoots. Most of the plants' tops had been lopped off prior to the morning raid, an indication that the growers had gotten their crop in the ground early and already took one cutting from the plants, according to Sgt. Mark Yanez, head of the Sheriff's Office Narcotic Enforcement Team.
The early harvest method is something that drug agents from the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a state Department of Justice program, said they are seeing across the region. Drug agents attribute the trend to marijuana growers adjusting to law enforcement.
"We're seeing it everywhere," said Dan Jackson, regional operations commander for CAMP in the Central Coast and the Central Valley.
Growers are putting their crops in the ground earlier -- the plants uprooted Monday were likely started in early March, as opposed to late April in years past -- then cutting the marijuana stands mid-summer before cops come through or water runs out, according to Sgt. Steve Carney, who once headed the Sheriff's Office drug team and was out on Monday's raid.
"They've got a guarantee," Carney said.
"That's why they top the plants once."
Yanez estimated the growers got away with marijuana worth $1 million to $3 million on the street, probably in the past two weeks. Deputies scouted the marijuana garden and two other sites in late June, which likely spooked the growers and led to the early harvest. The other sites were also cleaned out in advance of the raid.
"We had two other gardens, but they already harvested them," Yanez said.
Monday, four sheriff's deputies and a crew from the state ran the raid. A privately contracted helicopter pilot dropped nine officers into the garden using a 100-foot line dangling from the chopper. In pairs and wearing harnesses, the cops clipped onto the line and were flown 1.3 miles from a clear bluff in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south-facing hillside where the gardens were terraced into the hillside.
The gardens were rigged with a drip-irrigation system and the crew members reported finding two campsites as well as a cache of pesticides and fertilizer in the area. Based on the setup, Yanez suspected the garden was the work of a Mexican drug cartel.
In less than two hours, the "short haulers," the nickname for cops who do these operations, had hacked down plants in three separate plots and piled them into large nets that were then hooked to the helicopter and flown back to the landing zone on the bluff.
The raid was the first marijuana-eradication effort in the county this year.
Later in the afternoon Monday, the sheriff's deputies hiked into a marijuana garden in a remote area of the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park and eradicated 106 plants from two plots, according to Yanez.
Unlike most of the pot gardens the Sheriff's Office targets, the small grow in Nisene Marks likely was planted by a local, Yanez said. A hiker tipped off deputies to the garden, which was deep in the forest off Buzzard Lagoon Road.
The grower had blazed a trail straight down a slope, hung irrigation lines across a gully and through trees, and hauled in an irrigation tank to water the plants. The garden also had lots of pesticides and rodent traps, Yanez said.
The environmental degradation caused by illegal marijuana gardens -- regardless of their size -- is one of the reasons CAMP agents spend three months every summer targeting large grows across the state, according to Jackson.
"The biggest thing is the destruction of our public lands," he said, listing off the damage gardens cause, including water diversion, animal poaching, the use of illegal pesticides and littering. "Those things are as big or bigger than the fact they're growing an illegal drug."
Also, the majority of the drug cartels funding marijuana cultivation also are involved in trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine, and the quick cash marijuana can provide finances those other operations, Jackson said.
Last year, sheriff's deputies seized more than 29,000 pot plants during the outdoor growing season in Santa Cruz County. From April to the end of October, deputies raided 28 outdoor cultivation site. No arrests were made during any of those busts.
No arrests were made at either garden raided Monday. The marijuana plants seized will be buried at the county dump.
The outdoor growing season will continue in the county until the rainy season begins in the fall.
hxxp://shuurl.com/B5635
After the law enforcement crew hacked down about 4,700 budding plants, a helicopter hauled out five large nets of green shoots. Most of the plants' tops had been lopped off prior to the morning raid, an indication that the growers had gotten their crop in the ground early and already took one cutting from the plants, according to Sgt. Mark Yanez, head of the Sheriff's Office Narcotic Enforcement Team.
The early harvest method is something that drug agents from the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a state Department of Justice program, said they are seeing across the region. Drug agents attribute the trend to marijuana growers adjusting to law enforcement.
"We're seeing it everywhere," said Dan Jackson, regional operations commander for CAMP in the Central Coast and the Central Valley.
Growers are putting their crops in the ground earlier -- the plants uprooted Monday were likely started in early March, as opposed to late April in years past -- then cutting the marijuana stands mid-summer before cops come through or water runs out, according to Sgt. Steve Carney, who once headed the Sheriff's Office drug team and was out on Monday's raid.
"They've got a guarantee," Carney said.
"That's why they top the plants once."
Yanez estimated the growers got away with marijuana worth $1 million to $3 million on the street, probably in the past two weeks. Deputies scouted the marijuana garden and two other sites in late June, which likely spooked the growers and led to the early harvest. The other sites were also cleaned out in advance of the raid.
"We had two other gardens, but they already harvested them," Yanez said.
Monday, four sheriff's deputies and a crew from the state ran the raid. A privately contracted helicopter pilot dropped nine officers into the garden using a 100-foot line dangling from the chopper. In pairs and wearing harnesses, the cops clipped onto the line and were flown 1.3 miles from a clear bluff in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south-facing hillside where the gardens were terraced into the hillside.
The gardens were rigged with a drip-irrigation system and the crew members reported finding two campsites as well as a cache of pesticides and fertilizer in the area. Based on the setup, Yanez suspected the garden was the work of a Mexican drug cartel.
In less than two hours, the "short haulers," the nickname for cops who do these operations, had hacked down plants in three separate plots and piled them into large nets that were then hooked to the helicopter and flown back to the landing zone on the bluff.
The raid was the first marijuana-eradication effort in the county this year.
Later in the afternoon Monday, the sheriff's deputies hiked into a marijuana garden in a remote area of the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park and eradicated 106 plants from two plots, according to Yanez.
Unlike most of the pot gardens the Sheriff's Office targets, the small grow in Nisene Marks likely was planted by a local, Yanez said. A hiker tipped off deputies to the garden, which was deep in the forest off Buzzard Lagoon Road.
The grower had blazed a trail straight down a slope, hung irrigation lines across a gully and through trees, and hauled in an irrigation tank to water the plants. The garden also had lots of pesticides and rodent traps, Yanez said.
The environmental degradation caused by illegal marijuana gardens -- regardless of their size -- is one of the reasons CAMP agents spend three months every summer targeting large grows across the state, according to Jackson.
"The biggest thing is the destruction of our public lands," he said, listing off the damage gardens cause, including water diversion, animal poaching, the use of illegal pesticides and littering. "Those things are as big or bigger than the fact they're growing an illegal drug."
Also, the majority of the drug cartels funding marijuana cultivation also are involved in trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine, and the quick cash marijuana can provide finances those other operations, Jackson said.
Last year, sheriff's deputies seized more than 29,000 pot plants during the outdoor growing season in Santa Cruz County. From April to the end of October, deputies raided 28 outdoor cultivation site. No arrests were made during any of those busts.
No arrests were made at either garden raided Monday. The marijuana plants seized will be buried at the county dump.
The outdoor growing season will continue in the county until the rainy season begins in the fall.
hxxp://shuurl.com/B5635
