http://www.sjmercury.com/news/local/docs/021470.htm

Raiders strike green gold on North Coast

PERRY GULCH (AP) Piled three feet high in the back of a large flatbed
pickup, the plants on the bottom already beginning to wilt and fade, it's
hard to imagine the day's dope take represents more than $4 million.

But this is green gold, Mendocino County's finest, and the booty is nearly
1,200 marijuana plants, each capable of producing a pound of prized ``bud''
worth about $4,000, authorities say.

``Ruined another guy's summer,'' one officer announces upon his return from
a pot patch where the controversial state Campaign Against Marijuana
Planting, or CAMP, has spent the day plundering illegal gardens on
LouisianaPacific Corp. lands.

``Bingo,'' copter pilot Fred Young says via radio from the air. He's
spotted another garden plot the team needs to hit.

These are guys who enjoy their work amid the aromatic gardens of the North
Coast, and they approach it with gusto.

Whacking away with Swedish brush axes, they can bring down a plot of 50
plants in well under a minute, destroying in seconds what could have
brought in $200,000 on the underground market. Nurtured and manicured for
months, the plants will be buried and left to rot within hours.

``I like cutting dope. It means nobody else gets it,'' said Mendocino
County sheriff's Deputy Scott Poma, who joined a CAMP raid on his day off.

The bulk of the 10hour day is spent pinpointing gardens, transporting
crews, then hauling the plants out in large yellow nets attached to a
helicopter.

A large part of the effort is made ahead of time by local marijuana
suppression teams in each county. Under agreement with the state, they're
required to have targeted gardens plotted and identified before CAMP
arrives.

Led by an entry team that secures the area, teams of two or three workers
are ferried in by chopper to a small area just big enough for the
fourseater to land. Or they travel by pairs at the end of 150foot lines
dangling from the copter in what's called a STABO, or shortterm airborne
observation.

In what amounts to a Disneyland ``E ride,'' they speed through the air, one
man's legs locked to those of the others, and, with sheer precision, are
planted into the target area.

Though Mendocino County so far accounts for about half of the more than
63,000 plants seized by CAMP since its eightweek season started Aug. 4,
crew members know they'll leave plenty behind to keep the underground
marijuana market afloat.

Some opponents of marijuana suppression activities, many of whom favor the
drug's legalization, argue that the work done by CAMP and other agencies
unnecessarily inflates the price of a widely accepted drug and, with it,
the potential for violence.

Published Thursday, September 4, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News