Marijuana Growers Take Root in Southland’s Remote Areas

It’s harvest time and a bumper crop of marijuana is growing in the Southern California backcountry, authorities say.

From remote canyons in national forests to irrigated citrus groves, growers have planted the highly profitable cannabis, having been pushed southward by beefed-up police surveillance in Northern California.

“Our guys were doing such a good job in spotting and eradicating cannabis that it was beginning to take a dramatic shift to San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties,” said Charles Stowell, coordinator of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s statewide marijuana eradication program.

“The growers move,” he said. “They are a rather fluid group.”

So far this year, narcotics agents have seized 108,158 marijuana plants statewide, up 9% from the same time period last year.

It’s a high-stakes gamble in which the payoff can be considerable; 300 full-grown plants will net more than $1 million. One pound of marijuana--which one mature plant usually produces--fetches about $3,400 wholesale.

In the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County, growers take advantage of the steep, remote canyons where few hikers and hunters venture.

To avoid detection by helicopters, they have begun to space their plants farther apart, making the distinctive leaf more difficult to detect from the air, authorities said. They choose areas only accessible by foot, miles from hiking trails, and usually only reachable by the very determined.

One man--U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Daniel G. Gustafson--is charged with monitoring 150,000 acres of the national forest. Gustafson knows most of the growers’ tricks, and looks for hollowed-out manzanitas or red shank bushes that shelter marijuana seedlings and provide a green umbrella that--from the air--blocks any sign of the telltale leaf.

With such a large territory, Gustafson counts on narcotic agents in helicopters, informants, hunters and his own two feet to ferret out marijuana plants. Knowing that the growers need water, Gustafson also will frequently hike through dense, remote areas with access to water, like those along canyon drains.

Some areas are so steep that even a horse could not negotiate the terrain and so dense with brush that walking only 100 yards can take up to two hours.

“I wouldn’t take my worst enemies to some plants; it’s so remote,” said Gustafson, shaking his head. “It’s sort of like hunting or fishing--sometimes you catch something, sometimes you don’t.”

Some growers rig up elaborate drip irrigation systems. One tapped the U.S. Forest Service’s own water lines. Still another dammed up a creek. Others, however, plant by the side of a little-used dirt road and dump water on the plants as they drive by at night.

Sometimes marijuana growers find havens in citrus and avocado groves in North San Diego County, tapping irrigation water and hiding their illegal crop among the trees.

Last week, for instance, 3,017 marijuana plants were snatched from three different sites nestled among citrus groves, said Lt. Pat Kerins of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

Aside from shielding their crop from authorities, growers have other hurdles to overcome. They must guard against “patch pirates”--raiders who steal a mature crop. To help better their odds, those tending the plants often tote guns and sometimes set booby traps. In San Diego County, 10 such potentially deadly traps were discovered last year by law enforcement agents, said Jack Hook, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in San Diego.

These traps range from Vietnam war-era devices in which the hapless walker tumbles into a pit to a more diabolical setup with shotgun shells hooked to rat traps that are triggered by trip wires.

While growers have become more sophisticated, narcotics agents are struggling to keep pace.

This year, authorities charged with eradicating marijuana have changed their mission: No longer do they just “whack-and-stack,” the phrase that agents use to describe pulling up the leafy 12-foot plants.

“Now, we are concentrating on putting more people in jail,” Hook said.

Statewide, law enforcement agencies have arrested 780 marijuana growers and eradicated 108,158 marijuana plants so far this year, 9% more plants than during the same time period last year. In San Diego, authorities have snagged 14,941 plants so far--they expect to surpass last year’s catch of 18,026--and have arrested 34 people in connection with growing them, Hook said.