POT RAIDS RAMP UP THIS WEEK

UKIAH - State marijuana eradication teams are arriving on the North
Coast today, two weeks earlier than usual.

"They're planting earlier, we might as well get out there and start
picking them," said Special Agent Michelle Gregory, a state Department
of Justice spokeswoman. She said officers in the state's CAMP,
Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, program, today will join
pot-fighting efforts in Sonoma and Lake counties and in July in
Mendocino County.

The early start is expected to yield yet another record confiscation
of pot plants, Gregory said. Local officials already are reporting
higher seizures this year.

"Hopefully, we can get some more grow sites," she said. Statewide last
year, federal, state and local officers who make up CAMP seized 2.9
million plants worth an estimated $11.6 billion. A separate federal
effort last year bumped up the number of plants seized in California
to 5.2 million.

The counts do not include local pot eradication efforts conducted
during the rest of the year.

Local authorities say they've already pulled more pot plants from the
ground this year than last. Sonoma County has ripped out almost 40,000
plants so far this year, more than three times as many as at the same
time last year, Sheriff's Sgt. Chris Bertoli said. Lake and Mendocino
counties officials said they believe their figures also are up but no
numbers were immediately unavailable.

For three years in a row, CAMP agents have pulled more plants out of
Lake County than any other county in the state. Mendocino County
ranked fourth last year and Sonoma County 14th.

The ever increasing numbers have confounded even marijuana advocates.
The price of marijuana has remained stable at about $300 an ounce,
indicating there's been little or no change in local supply and
demand, said Dale Gieringer, of NORML, the National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

He said immigration crackdowns along the Mexican border have induced
Mexican nationals to grow pot in California for distribution elsewhere
in the United States rather than try to smuggle marijuana across the
border.

"That's the only thing that makes sense," he said.

It's also what law enforcement officials suspect. The larger gardens
discovered on public lands are cultivated largely by Mexicans, they
said. Gregory said greed is the driving force behind increased
cultivation, which also has been facilitated by genetic
alterations.

Growers not only have created more potent pot strains but have
developed some plants that can withstand colder temperatures,
extending the outdoor growing season, Gregory said. "They have some
that grow through the winter," she said. "This is not the same
marijuana from the '60s and '70s."

Gieringer said rather than spend money to stop marijuana growing,
"taxpayers should be making money off of it."

An April Field Poll indicated a majority of voters think it should be
taxed and the money used to balance the state budget. Assemblyman Tom
Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill in February that would
regulate and tax marijuana, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently
said it's time to discuss the issue.