SANGER, Calif. (AP) This summer, California narcotics officers have pulled millions fewer pot plants from the state's remote forests than in past years. The reason, investigators say, is that drug traffickers have come down out of the mountains to plant pot in plain sight in backyards and on prime farmland, where California's medical marijuana law makes them tougher to bust.
Historically, growers of large-scale illicit pot gardens relied on the cover and isolation of California's wildernesses to protect their plants. Last year, the state's annual campaign to root out such grows netted more than 4.3 million plants worth billions of dollars. This year, however, the number of plants seized dropped by almost half.
State anti-drug agents say traffickers have migrated to California's Central Valley, one of the country's most fertile agricultural zones. From here, they say pot grown on tree-sized plants makes its way not just to California's storefront marijuana dispensaries but also to street dealers across the country.
In Fresno County alone, investigators typically expect to find 60 to 80 large grows in the mountains, said Lt. Richard Ko, head of marijuana eradication for the county sheriff's office, in response to inquiries from The Associated Press. In 2011, they found nine, he said. Meanwhile, the number of large pot farms on the Valley floor rose to 121 countywide, up from 37 in 2010.
Instead of huge, isolated gardens, traffickers have turned to networks of smaller growing operations, investigators say.
Their smaller size keeps them off the radar of federal agents seeking bigger hauls, and local prosecutors are wary of pursuing cases against growers claiming the pot is for medical use, said longtime narcotics agent Brent Wood.
"We can't touch 'em, and it's everywhere," said Wood, who commands the multi-agency Central Valley Marijuana Investigation Team.
Investigators say growers often lease plots from landowners or farmers. In some cases, the growers are small farmers themselves who grow pot to supplement their incomes or simply raise other crops as a cover from onlookers' eyes.
During a helicopter flight over Fresno County this past week, pot plantations were easy to spot. Ko pointed out farms where marijuana plants covered dozens of acres. Most of the massive grows were fenced and surrounded by vegetables on trellises. Some were concealed within abandoned orchards. On several grows, workers harvested plants and dried marijuana on tarps.
Over the city of Fresno, Ko pointed to dozens of pot plots in the backyards of homes.
On the ground, Ko drove down a dirt road to a farm on the outskirts of Sanger, near Fresno. Above tall vines of yellowing melons, marijuana plants the size of fruit trees were just barely visible. The plot of about 60 plants was surrounded by a fence decked with lights and motion sensors.
Three growers approached Ko and presented makeshift medical marijuana cards.
One grower, Mike Kipraseut, led Ko past a pit bull and a lookout platform in a tree. Several pot plants were on the ground, chopped at the stems. The family, who said they were refugees from Laos, decided to get rid of the plants, Kipraseut said, because they had seen the helicopter circling earlier that week. In any case, he said the plants would not mature in time to harvest them before the rains.
