Marijuana a Growing Concern in the County

Ventura County was one of the top marijuana-producing counties in the state last year--the first time the region has earned such a distinction, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Based on the 5,700 pot plants seized countywide in 1995--a high-grade haul with an estimated street value of $23 million--sheriff’s officials have concluded that Ventura County produced one of the five largest marijuana crops in California last year, said Lt. Craig Husband.

“Marijuana cultivation is at an all-time high here,” Husband said. “In fact, we now rank as one of the state’s highest marijuana producers, which is surprising, considering that Northern California has always been the center of pot growing in this state.”

The explosion of marijuana farming has joined methamphetamine manufacturing as the most serious concern to Ventura County narcotics officers, who until recent years had seen few of the problems plaguing other California counties.

Michael Van Winkle, a spokesman for the California Department of Justice, said it would be impossible to determine definitively whether Ventura County was one of the state’s top five pot producers because no one keeps exact figures on the number of marijuana plants seized in each county.

However, he said the number of plants seized by Ventura County authorities in 1995 was certainly high, and the county’s single largest bust--about 4,000 plants near Lake Casitas last September--was the biggest he had heard of in California last year.

Husband said the Sheriff’s Department based its conclusion on a report by Campaign Against Marijuana Planting [CAMP], a state-run, federally funded task force.

Although Ventura County was not specifically named in the report, sheriff’s investigators concluded after attending a CAMP conference and talking to authorities from other areas that the county ranked among the state’s top five pot producers in 1995.

Despite the increase, Ventura County’s marijuana-growing problem is nowhere near as serious as that of Humboldt or Mendocino counties, which have become notorious for pot production. CAMP alone seized more than 26,000 plants in each county last year.

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Nevertheless, sheriff’s officials believe the September bust was the largest in Ventura County history, and they are concerned that pot growing is on the rise. They attribute last year’s bumper pot crop to two factors: an influx of Mexican growers using sophisticated cultivating techniques, and an unusually bountiful water supply from last winter’s rainstorms.

“This is the first time we’ve seen actual professional-style cultivations in Ventura County,” said Sgt. Arnie Aviles of the Sheriff’s Department. “At these commercial groves we recovered, there were [signs that there were] tens of people manning these marijuana fields.”

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Although sheriff’s investigators discovered a total of nine large marijuana groves last year--including a seizure of about 1,000 plants in Tar Creek Canyon near Fillmore--they have been unable to catch the growers.

The Sheriff’s Department plans to conduct more aerial observations this year to spot the illegal crops, and also is asking local hikers and farm workers to report groves and suspicious activity to police.

Meanwhile, methamphetamine-making laboratories continue to pose a problem for Ventura County authorities--and the clandestine operations are becoming harder to detect.

No longer the sole purview of bikers and back-country outlaws, methamphetamine production is increasingly being taken over by Mexican drug dealers who have easier access to the chemicals needed to make the drug in their home country, authorities said. And the Mexican newcomers are using more expensive equipment to make the methamphetamine, thereby cutting down on the noise and odor that typically tip off neighbors and police.

“It seems like Mexican nationals are involved in these operations,” Aviles said. “It seems like those people have discovered Ventura County and how close it is to distribution routes in Los Angeles.”

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For the past several years, authorities have been finding about half a dozen methamphetamine labs in Ventura County every year, mainly in the sparsely populated areas near Ojai, Santa Paula and Fillmore. By the time they locate them, however, the drugs and the drug makers are often long gone.

Although the problem is not nearly as serious as in Riverside or San Bernardino counties--traditionally the top methamphetamine-producing areas in the nation--local narcotics authorities are worried that it could get worse.

Already, methamphetamine has become the most popular hard drug in Ventura County, authorities say. In about three days, with a fairly simple chemical recipe, someone can make about 60 pounds of the drug. That is enough to supply scores of small-time dealers--and hundreds of addicts, who often commit petty crimes and robberies to sustain their habit.

“People get involved as recreational users,” said Det. Scott Whitney of the Oxnard Police Department. “But they find it’s more addictive than they realized, and that leads to crime. We could arrest people all day long.”

Raiding the home of someone who has become a speed freak is a dangerous, unsavory experience, authorities said.

“The biggest pain to everybody is the small dealer who sells a few grams out of his apartment,” said Sgt. Fred James of the Simi Valley Police Department. “Frankly, methamphetamine users are not very nice people. Most of them are dirty individuals. Some of the houses we go into are such pigpens, it’s hard to imagine people living in them.”

Moreover, knocking over methamphetamine labs is extremely expensive. In addition to the large number of law enforcement personnel needed to conduct a raid, methamphetamine makers often leave behind a toxic stew of chemicals so dangerous that it requires an environmental cleanup.

“The real problem is dealing with the labs once we find them,” Husband said. “They are hard to take down because the people who run them usually have weapons and want to fight us. And the cleanup stages are very expensive. These people just dump the hazardous byproducts wherever they feel like it.”

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Another problem facing narcotics authorities in Ventura County is the availability of black tar heroin--a cheaper, less potent form of the drug that usually enters the United States from Mexico.

In last few months of 1995, local authorities made several heroin raids in the Oxnard area, where the drug is most prevalent. One bust netted 13 ounces, another about nine ounces, Aviles said.

The heroin seems to be making its way into Ventura County from Orange County, he added. But according to local authorities, western Ventura County has not become part of any heroin supply route; there is simply a concentration of junkies in the area.

“It has always, traditionally, been a problem here,” said Det. Whitney of Oxnard. “You have a steady source of junkies here, but it’s not getting any worse.”