Last week, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims told a U.S. Senate panel that Mexican drug cartels are shifting their grow operations from National Forests to private farms, under the "guise" of the state’s medical marijuana industry.
"Rather than growing marijuana in the relative secrecy and anonymity afforded by remote public lands, many moved illicit operations onto private agricultural lands," Sheriff Mims told the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
As evidence of this, Mims reported that 36 multi-acre cultivation sites were found on privately owned farmland in Fresno County in 2010 alone.
Caucus Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein said: "[The] Central Valley in particular has become a hot spot for marijuana cultivation because of the conditions there, including abundant sunlight, irrigation and fertilizer."
Sen. Feinstein continued: "These are Mexican nationals who are running these operations. They are armed and dangerous, and we ought to go after them."
95 percent of those arrested at marijuana grow sites are illegal aliens.
According to Sheriff Mims, most of the marijuana grown on private farms is not sold in medical marijuana storefronts but rather, "for distribution and sales, often to out-of-state destinations."
As the cartels hide behind California’s permissive laws towards so-called medical marijuana may allow our national parks to recover somewhat from the damage the cartels have wrought upon them.
In 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 3,500 acres in southern Arizona had been closed to U.S. citizens because of the dangers posed in that area from Mexican drug smugglers. The area included part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.
Refuge manager Mitch Ellis told Fox News: "The situation in this zone has reached a point where continued public use of the area is not prudent."
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said: "It’s literally out of control. We need support from the federal government. It’s their job to secure the border and they haven’t done it. In fact, President Obama suspended the construction of the fence and it’s just simply outrageous."
Babeu continued: "We need action. It’s shameful that we, as the most powerful nation on Earth, … can’t even secure our own border and protect our own families."
It is estimated that the cartels produce 30 tons of pot in our parks annually.
Brent Wood, a supervisor for the California Department of Justice's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, recently told the Associated Press: "Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they've gone to mega, monster gardens. It's amazing how they have changed the way they do business. It's their domain."
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, in 2008 alone, U.S. law enforcement agencies police across the nation confiscated or destroyed 7.6 million marijuana plants from 20,000 outdoor plots. Of course, the seized plants represent only a small fraction of the cartels’ crop.
Large pot farms have been found from Klamath National and Sequoia National Parks in California and Pike National Forest in Colorado to George Washington National Forest in Virginia and all points in between. Often, those farms are booby-trapped with trip wires surrounding the operations.
Natural streams are diverted to irrigate the illegal crops, and the soil is severely damaged with harsh pesticides. When those operating the farms move on to another location--the areas more resemble a garbage dump, than a national forest. The harm being done to both flora and fauna is immeasurable.
This is not a problem unique to the American Southwest, but now affects public lands across the entire nation, and the smugglers are becoming increasingly more destructive.
In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt started the National Parks system, setting aside 194 millions of acres of pristine wilderness by the end of his presidency, so that all Americans could enjoy nature’s beauty and peaceful tranquility. He brought these unspoiled lands under federal protection so that they would remain that way forever.
I would venture to say that never could TR could have imagined the day when American families could no longer venture into those parks because an invading army of criminals now use them for their own enterprises. Nor could he have ever imagined a day when his own government, sworn to protect those public lands, would sit by and allow such an atrocity.
In a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas on August 31, 1910, Roosevelt stated: "I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the nature resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste the, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."
Unfortunately, we are all being robbed as our national parks become nothing more than marijuana farms, occupied by illegal aliens carrying automatic weapons and trashing once unspoiled national treasures.
What use is a government which chooses not to defend its land and people?
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