Politics - Aerial drones will hunt California pot growers in national forests - sacbee.com
The federal government plans to escalate its eradication of marijuana plantations in the backwoods of national forests this year, beginning in California with the deployment of larger strike teams and the controversial launching of miniature, remote-controlled spy planes to outfox growers, a top Bush administration official said Thursday.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said an increasing number of pot growers financed by Mexican drug cartels are taking cover in the forest, particularly in the southern Sierra Nevada.

“We believe there are as many of them working marijuana gardens on national forests in California as there are Forest Service employees in the state – upwards of 5,000,” said Rey, who oversees the agency.

According to Rey, the administration decided to disclose the planned surge in forest surveillance after The Bee and Associated Press persisted in questioning U.S. Forest Service officials about a $100,000 purchase of two battery-powered “unmanned aerial vehicles.”

“We wanted to (clarify) what they are being used for, and what they aren’t being used for,” Rey said. “Random hunters aren’t being spied on by their government.”

In 2000, the Forest Service reported the eradication of several marijuana gardens in Hawaii, Kentucky, Tennessee and California, including the Shasta Trinity National Forest where agents seized about 4,300 marijuana plants at one location, according to the DEA.

Since then, law enforcers have uprooted up to 6 million marijuana plants in California national forests, Rey said.

Little mini-spy planes flying about with telephoto lenses and thermal imaging equipment?  Sure, there’s no way that technology could ever be abused.

Need we point out that if marijuana were legal, taxed, and regulated, we’d be making and saving a total of $10-$14 billion per year and there would be no prohibition profit to justify environmentally dangerous growsites on public forest land?  Or should we just lament the spending of $100,000 of taxpayer money for domestic spy drones while the Forest Service is crying about having too small a budget?  How about noting that 98% of this dreaded marijuana that is uprooted by the authorities every year is non-smokable, low-THC ditchweed?

Tags: aerial drones, domestic spying, forest growsites, Forest Service

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under 4:20 NewsHour, Law Enforcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a trackback from your own site.