For over ten years, drug dealers have cultivated marijuana crops in  national and state parks and forests.  It has been projected that one-third of California’s national parks have been infiltrated by marijuana “grows.”  On average, these grows cover thirty acre tracts, where over 100 plants are cultivated.  These marijuana gardens are irrigated by makeshift irrigation systems and protected by illegal pesticides.

In 2008, 3.1 million marijuana/pot  plants were seized in national forests with an estimated street value of  $12.4 billion dollars. The cultivators, who nurture these grows on public land, avoid the risk of having their property forfeited by the government.  In addition, public land  produced marijuana/pot is more profitable than smuggling it across the border from the south.

These growers clear and denude vast sections of forest and park land.  When the crop is harvested they leave behind mountains of trash and streams laden with human waste and illicit pesticides.  Last year, a community in California traced human waste in its water system to a grow in San Bernardino National Forest.

Many of the grows  produce  violent confrontations between government agents, competitors and naive campers or hikers. In August 2005, a team of game wardens went on a hunt for a marijuana/pot grow.  As they approached the field, an officer was shot by a high power rifle.  Immediately thereafter, a second grower appeared from the fields with a sawed-off shot gun.  He was shot and killed by a game warden. The growers left behind 22,000 marijuana/pot plants with an estimated value of $88 million dollars. The site was in Silicon Valley.  Today, law enforcement agents approach a raid on a grow like a combat fire fight; using air support and bringing medics in case of injury.

Eighty percent of the growers arrested by law enforcement agents are Mexican citizens.  As a result it is believed that the drug czars of Mexico control the grows.  Unfortunately these growers do not know who they work for, which leaves law enforcement officers to conclude that the operations are conducted like a terrorist cell with no link to the leader.