(CNN) Hovering in a canyon in a chopper is not for the faint of heart. We came to do a story for AC360° on the “marijuana gardens” that exist on public land — like national parks and U.S. forests. About 80 percent of marijuana grown outdoors is grown in those areas.

We came to the right spot here. As we hovered we could see the plants below us as well as the irrigation system the growers illegally installed in the forest. The system diverts the rain water to these “gardens,” so the rest of the forest is deprived of water while the marijuana plants thrive.

Our pilot dropped us on a ridge. I was glad we didn’t see where we were landing until after we climbed out of the chopper. We were with deputies from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and they gave us green floppy hats to wear to help blend in among the trees so “they” wouldn’t see us.

Who are “they?” I’m told “they” are Mexican immigrants who have been smuggled across the border. They’re the ones who are allegedly responsible for growing this stuff. They bring in the seeds, the fertilizer and everything else they need when they enter the U.S. It’s all financed, according to law enforcement, by the drug cartels in Mexico.

It’s a basic exchange: immigrants rely on the cartels to get them across the border, and the immigrants re-pay their debt by tending the “marijuana gardens” for the cartels.

It’s an uphill battle for law enforcement, which doesn’t have enough money or manpower to keep destroying the drug.

Then the solution should be obvious, shouldn’t it?  Last time I checked, Mexican cartels have never transplanted foreign nationals into national parks to plant tobacco or hops or wine grapes.  I’m pretty sure American farmers would be more than happy to grow legal marijuana and hemp and follow environmental, commercial, and tax laws while doing so.

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USATODAY.com
CHICAGO — Mexican drug cartels are stepping up marijuana cultivation in U.S. national parks and on other public land, endangering visitors and damaging the environment, law enforcement and National Park Service officials say.

John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, says 75%-80% of marijuana grown outdoors is on state or federal land. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says there were more than 4.8 million marijuana-plant seizures at outdoor sites in 2006.

Tighter border controls make it harder to smuggle marijuana into the USA, so more Mexican drug networks are growing crops here, Walters says.

“We are finding more marijuana gardens in the park year after year,” says Jim Milestone, superintendent of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in Northern California.

“We’re dealing with some bad characters,” Milestone says. “We are arresting people … who have criminal records in Mexico, and almost all of them are here illegally with false papers.”

The number of marijuana plants confiscated on public land in California grew from 40% to 75% of total seizures between 2001-2007, says the state’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting task force.

Hunting and cleaning up after pot growers diverts resources at a time when parks face chronic funding shortfalls, says Laine Hendricks of the non-profit National Parks Conservation Association.

When will the government ever learn the basics of supply and demand?  The American people demand pot.  Good, bad, or indifferent to it, it’s a fact.  Where there is demand, there will be supply.  Cut off the smuggling routes from Mexico, then the suppliers will move here and use our parklands.  Crack down on the parklands, the suppliers will buy suburban homes and grow indoors.  Crack down on the grow houses and the people will just grow their own.  At every step along the way, each crackdown creates scarcity and risk, which leads to high prices and profits.  A lucrative supply market with no legal way to resolve disputes then uses violence and terror to resolve disputes.

Also, it is important to note that of this 75%-80% outdoor weed supply, 98% of that is feral ditchweed hemp that can get nobody high and isn’t being cultivated by any bad characters.

Look, I smoke pot every day and I don’t want criminal gangs exploiting our national parks and state lands!  That’s why I support an end to adult marijuana prohibition, so farmers can grow it like any other crop and I can buy it in a well-regulated manner like any other intoxicant.  I don’t like guys with guns setting up booby traps in the forest, leaking generator diesel fuel in the environment and degrading our forest lands.  That’s why I’d note that you very rarely find moonshine stills secreted in the woods these days, and you never find clandestine tobacco or hops farms in the national parks.

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