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Government plans large-scale marijuana raids in six California counties

July 7, 2011

Marijuana growers in the Mendocino National Forest will be the targets of the largest series of law enforcement raids ever conducted in Northern California. [California Watch]

Later this summer, as illegal grow operations start winding up for the surge in blooms and gearing up for harvest, Operation Full Court Press will unleash hundreds of local, state and federal agents into six counties.

The raids will target illegal growers who set up huge plantations of the crop, with some grows numbering in the tens of thousands.

Law enforcement agents contend that many of the operations have links to large Mexican drug trafficking rings.

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says the operation will help investigators target the organized criminal groups behind the illegal pot trade.

“The operation this year is going to have an impact on drug-trafficking organizations, marijuana supply that affects the rest of the nation,” he said.

Bruce Anderson, publisher of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, has his doubts.

“You are not going to catch Mr. Big in the pot patch with $100,000 in cash,” he said. The expensive, large-scale force will, as has happened in the past, find few, if any, growers when they get there, he added. The growers, with access to modern technology and cell phones, will be well alerted and long gone.

For more information behind the explosion in illegal pot growing on public lands in California, listen to KQED’s The California Report, which has been airing the series, “The Republic of Cannabis.”


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Pot is grown in literally every county in california, including SLO County (in every state and country too). One of the biggest pot grows ever discovered was in the Irish Hills outside Los Osos (1998 or 99 I think).

They’ll go in cut down tens of thousands of plants, arrest no one and pat themselves on the back.

Meanwhile, the evil weed will continue to be grown harvested and sold and smoked everywhere else.

I doubt the Mexican cartels are growing much weed in Mendocino County. They have their own growers there. The Mexicans are in places like SLO, Fresno, and the other counties in the state.

Cost of pot is going to go up for a while, but the crooks will backfill the supply in little time and the growers who got away will gear up for the next grow season.

And with pot on public lands, they won’t be confiscating anything to reimburse the taxpayers.

We should end this nonsense now. We can’t afford this kind of blitzgreig of law enforcement’s war on weed.

Legalize it now.


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They announce the sweeps so they don’t get shot. They get the weed and leave the growers so they have a job next season. Duhhh. What’s new with State employees?


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Law enforcement will always feed the the hype and fuel the war on drugs. Perpetuating this farce is how they fund their helicopters, hazard pay, night vision equipment, Retirement, and generally assure their own destiny and financial success.


It is the direct corollary to the untouchable status of firefighters and “Homeland Security” (HA!) after 9/11.


Who dares question the support needed by our heroes in these wars for our safety!!!!


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Ya gotta watch this!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ArxnkWck0


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Kum Ba Yah. I just read everyones post,,,I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. Karen, who are these impostors.. I actually can’t find much that I disagree with regarding everyones comments,,, and that kinda scares me.


All points are good. The first thing that came to mind was the cost involved with all this. This is going to cost US a fortune and makes me think about C. Lynch, the recent terrible 10 raids and litigation’s and everything involved with such enforcement on a substance that really isn’t that bad. Many choose not to use cannabis just as there is a lot of people that choose not to sit on the couch and down a few shots everyday. It’s a matter of what should be a free choice. Pot is less harmful to EVERYONE if legalized even those that choose to never use it.. This is a huge expenditure in a time when our prisons, medical, schools, bridges, when our entire infrastructure is falling apart and here we are spending this money for this big raid and for what? Like someone said, the cartels have been warned, they’re picking their best buds as I type and they will all be gone by the end of this night.


I also thought about the hot topic of border control. Legalize it, what’s the motivation for the cartels to even do business in this country if we take away thier customer base. Stoners will buy pot, the war on drugs like most wars didn’t work out so well. We could send a lot of truly illegal and dangerous people out of this country simply by taking away thier customers (and you all know who you are). If legal, pot customers wouldn’t buy cartel pot.


This is pitiful there must be some way to stop this insane waste of tax payer money. There’s so many places where this money should be spent. ‘ I Like you Jerry Brown, like you Obama, like you Capps, I even like you Mcarthy,,do something about this. We vote for you and no one agrees with this war. Get it on the ballots, fight for it, demand it, do it and do it without involving big pharma at all.’ If Citizen whats to grow his own pot then fine. Just as he keeps his tequila from Citizen Jr. he must do the same with his pot. Let Gimlet buy his stash from Farmer Bobfromslo (let the Libs/proggies make some money for a change). Farmer Bob has to buy his supplies from Zap’s pot hydroponics store, give poor ole Pot Field Inspector Spirit a job. That’s stimulating the economy, that’s helping our state get out of the mess we’re in. Bob, Zap and Spirit will be rolling in dough and making it legal would save everyone $$$$$ for everyone else in this country.


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Don’t kiss Obama’s ass so quickly. He lied during his campaign when he said he wouldn’t spend federal resources undermining state’s law with medical pot. Yet, raids on state legal dispensaries from the dea has been double than under Bush. Go check out Stopthedrugwar.org for details regarding his lies. It’s all over the page. If you smoke pot or believe in its being legalized, he is not your choice for the next president. Isn’t he an illegal? jk.


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Apparently, our President is having problems remembering his lies. Fortunately, there are people “in the know” who fact check what he says. Typoqueen, he now has earned “Two Pinocchios” from FactChecker-dot-com. Link below.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-tax-boo-boo-at-the-twitter-town-hall–and-a-response-to-readers-questions/2011/07/07/gIQAVt7o2H_blog.html?hpid=z4


I wonder if he also can’t recall his campaign stance on spending taxpayers money on MMJ?


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You guys love to pin all of earths problems on Obama but lets not forget who started this ‘war on drugs/just say no’ nonesense. There’s blame to go around.


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I notice you didn’t bother to respond to the context of my post and my pointing out the untruths spoken by our President. This backs up my prior post in which you requested I back up my statement with proof of his “material misrepresentations”. Shall I continue to provide more evidence of this?


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You’re right danika, I forgot to respond to your posts, probably because your link was so ridiculous. That website nit picked and really didn’t mention any lies. So he said that everyone would get and extra 1000$ as opposed to $850. The rest was also just a bunch petty nonesense. I mean a lie such as ‘we have to go to war in Iraq because of WMDs’ and then ‘mission accomplished’, those are some substantial lies. I would think that as long as it took you find what you call ‘lies’ that you could have done better than that….FAIL.


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Just the thought of having a regular job gets me all-a-flutter. I wonder if my walker will get down those rows.


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Farmer Bob will be required to make the rows ADA compliant.


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They are going to have to flatten out those furrows also. I don’t want to trip without my wife around.

Typoqueen you are really funny. I like that about you.


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Thanks.


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