Airborne Raids Launched Against Marijuana Fields

Watched closely by civil rights groups, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting launched its 1985 marijuana-eradication effort Monday with airborne raids on plots in southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties.

An estimate of the number of plants uprooted was not immediately available, but state Department of Justice spokeswoman Katy Corsaut said the first “slingloads” of contraband arrived at a special burn pit at 1 p.m. and were still arriving in the early evening.

Four separate helicopter assault teams composed of state, federal and local officers took off on the first raids at 8 a.m. from the Eel River Conservation Camp, a state correctional facility near Redway in Humboldt County.

Corsaut said an unspecified number of search warrants were served on local private property owners while other raids were conducted on state and federal parkland and other remote public lands sometimes used by growers.

Volunteer civil rights observers witnessed one Humboldt County raid to make sure that CAMP agents followed a federal court order prohibiting unsafe flying and illegal searches and seizures.

CAMP spokesman Jim Berrera in Sacramento said the raiders were under strict orders to avoid flying near any farms and homesteads dotting the region’s rugged hills and lush redwood forests.

The restrictions were imposed after U.S. District Judge Robert Aguilar, in response to complaints from local residents, ruled in February that CAMP must get a search warrant before going within 500 feet of a car, home or person.

“We have to be very careful about flying over private property,” Berrera said. “We’re centering our activities on public lands. We don’t need search warrants to go on public lands.”

In 1984, CAMP arrested 120 people and seized more than a million pounds of marijuana plants and 1,639 pounds of dried sinsemilla buds, the potent flower of a seedless variety of marijuana. Northern California sinsemilla buds are known around the world as being among the most valued marijuana available.

In this, the third year of the program, $2.6 million has been allocated to operate CAMP in 38 of California’s 58 counties. Most of the activity, however, will be focused in the so-called “Emerald Triangle” of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties.

About 80% of the marijuana seized in 1984 came from this part of the state, although CAMP officials acknowledge that their efforts in the area apparently have driven growers to other rural counties.

Marijuana usually is planted in the spring and harvested in late summer or fall. By this time of year, the bushy plants, some of which are elaborately concealed and equipped with sophisticated irrigation systems, can be seen from the air.