Pot plantations have surged as Mexican-affiliated drug cartels adapt to increased border security since 9/11 and cash in on the rising price of high-grade weed, now more profitable than methamphetamine, according to investigators.
Oddly enough, public outcry has been remarkably muted.
Sequoia Kings Canyon spokesperson Alexandra Picavet thinks the drug debate has kept the problem from getting traction. "People get blinded by the marijuana issue.... We don't want people planting asparagus on the land, either. This is agricultural assault on a national park, no matter what they're growing."
Lawmakers say the issue is crowded out by more pressing matters. This year's federal drug-control strategy did not address pot cultivation on public land. And the Sierra Club acknowledges other priorities than drug bandits.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), whose district includes Sequoia National Park, called hearings on the marijuana incursion in 2003. He says the issue is under the radar for most lawmakers in Washington.
"They don't even know that it exists.... People don't think about it," Nunes says.
The pot growers are no longer the stereotype of hapless hippies. They are part of sophisticated criminal organizations schooled on the Colombian cartels' economy of scale, says Ruzzamenti. "They do things big. Even if you lose a little here, you'll make it up in the long run. They've taken this lesson to another level," he says.
Most of the ringleaders, say investigators, are U.S. nationals based in Southern California with connections to cartel families in Michoacan, Mexico; field workers are well-armed Mexican laborers.
"We've found AR-15s, shotguns, rifles, knives strapped to poles, crude crossbows," says J.D. Swed, chief ranger at Sequoia.
Ruzzamenti first learned of the cannabis boom two years ago when his office, set up to combat the Central Valley's rampant meth activity, saw a plunge in the number of meth labs. Busted lab operators told him that business was down in the summer because many of the workers were planting marijuana in the forest, where they could earn up to $200 a day. Authorities were at first incredulous that the lowly weed could have eclipsed meth for profitability. Then they began uncovering giant farms, such as a 79,000-plant haul in Tulare County valued at $360 million.
