Us Ca: Column: U.s. Drug Cops Ease Up On Pot‏

[+Malamute]

Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 27 Aug 2015
Source: SF Weekly (CA)
Column: Chem Tales
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.sfweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.sfweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/812
Author: Chris Roberts

Cannabis Plant Seizures Are at Their Lowest Point in Years.

U.S. DRUG COPS EASE UP ON POT

As America's multibillion dollar cannabis industry continues to
expand, the nation's drug cops are seizing less weed.

In 2009, the first summer of Barack Obama's presidency, a record 10.4
million marijuana plants were eliminated in America, according to the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

California alone accounted for 7.5 million plants that year,
according to the DEA's annual report on its "Domestic Cannabis
Eradication/Suppression Program," one of the biggest multi-agency law
enforcement efforts in the country.

It was also a record year for the California Department of Justice's
own Campaign Against Marijuana Planting - CAMP, as it is known and
cursed throughout the state's pot-producing regions.
Helicopter-riding police associated with CAMP accounted for 4,463,917
plants destroyed, the highest in CAMP's 31-year history. (The DEA
total likely includes CAMP's number, though a spokeswoman for
Attorney General Kamala Harris was unable to confirm this by press deadline).

Five years later, with recreational cannabis legal in two states and
medical marijuana spreading even to the Bible Belt, plant seizures plummeted.

In 2013, the most recent year in which national data was available,
the DEA reported eliminating 4,395,000 million plants, according to
Special Agent Eduardo Chavez, an agency spokesman. In California,
seizures dropped to 2.9 million plants.

The state has chilled out even more. Last year, CAMP reported
destroying 836,596 plants, the lowest total since 2004. (To give you
an idea of how far we've come since then, 2004 was the year that DEA
agents raided a six-plant garden in Nevada City. Six plants,
everybody.) Likewise, DEA's California numbers dropped in 2014 to
just under 2.7 million plants.

A decrease of 7.5 million to 2.7 million in five years is a
spectacular drop, but does it mean the war on cannabis is ending?

And if so, who won?

Loquacious after a big bust, law enforcement declined to participate
in this story. A spokeswoman for the DEA said the agency would have
no comment beyond providing statistics. Messages left for the
Trinity, Humboldt, and Mendocino county sheriff's departments were
not returned; a spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice,
which administers CAMP, did not answer questions by press deadline.

It's true that attitudes on cannabis have changed more in the last
few years that in the preceding few decades. Congress has removed
funding for messing with state-legal weed from the Justice
Department's budget (though that has no impact on the DEA's ability
to work with the Forest Service and local law enforcement to rub out
illegal grows), and federal legislation that would allow cannabis to
be researched and accessed more easily has record support.

Anecdotally, at least, it appears that law enforcement has also
shifted its approach. Last summer, the bad old days were revived for
a few weeks by sheriff's deputies in Mendocino County, who descended
from helicopters to "summarily eradicate" - read: destroy without
warrant or warning - pot patches, a legal move under a section of
case law called the "open fields clause." This summer, authorities'
most visible presence has been visits from agencies like the state
Water Board and the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Cannabis
policing now looks for water use or land-grading violations before
sending in police.

"In our opinion, that's a good thing," said Hezekiah Allen, a onetime
grower who now lobbies the state Legislature on behalf of cannabis
farmers for the Emerald Growers Association. "If you're trying to end
a war, visits from code enforcement are better" than military-style
raids, he said.

The summer's big raids fit this more selective pattern. An
industrial-sized farm on tribal land in remote Modoc County was
raided after tribe members complained. Similarly, a big eradication
effort on Yurok tribal land in Humboldt came at that tribe's request.
And authorities gave water use violations, not plant counts, as the
main reason behind a big raid in the Island Mountain region of Humboldt.

At the same time, growers' attitudes appear to be shifting. They're
moving away from cannabis's longtime home hidden in the redwoods.

CAMP is still busiest in the North Coast, where Trinity (90,283
plants seized last year), Mendocino (66,818) and Humboldt counties
(37,455) comprise the famed Emerald Triangle.

However, more plants were reported seized in Lake (83,635), Tulare
(66,509), Shasta (60,143), and Sonoma (52,593) counties than in Humboldt.

Even Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, had more
plants seized (39,538) than Humboldt.

As cannabis becomes more accepted, this trend will continue. It is
simply easier and more feasible to operate industrial-sized
greenhouses near highways and population centers - like in the
Central Valley, minutes from Interstate 5 - than on a remote
mountaintop far from the nearest highway. That's one reason why one
of the year's biggest busts, an 11,000-plant operation, was near
Fresno and not Ferndale.

But make no mistake: There's no peace yet, and bad players are still out there.

Over half of the pot seized by CAMP last summer was on publicly owned
land, either national forests, national parks, or tribal land. As
long as there are renegade grows, there will be helicopter-riding police.

But nearly everywhere else, it appears the drug war really is ending.
For proof, just look to the sky.

[+Malamute]

Thanks President Obama. Less than half the amount of seizures occurring after his first term. 

[Indigro]

Interesting number declines, and if i followed the numbers correctly, ca accounted for most all of the declines with appx a million in decline over the rest of the us... Still, we spend a lot of time over multile millions of plants. And ca really did have the lions share of all plants grown, always. I hear that if u arent complaining about thousands of plants, the ca dea isnt going to even bother responding. And correct me if i am wrong, but teen weed use never ever spiked in ca... What happened to the save the kids argument? Esp considering they now have multiple millions of additional, uneradicated plants everywhere?

 

Personal note... Dont like the author of this piece... Maybe loquacious means something else at a bay area weekly than elsewhere... Im just in a mood, lol

[t-pain]

arent the super large grows in cali that are getting busted mostly cartel grows on national forests?

[solabeirtan]

I think the're really ISIS now...  blame Trump!

 

jk hheehee

Edited August 28, 2015 by solabeirtan

[solabeirtan]

All joking aside for a moment, it appears the author was not aware of the fact that the CAMP program has been disbanded (reported here in March 2015). 

 

"Coinciding largely with the downsizing of, and then ultimately the disbanding of, the state's nearly 30-year-old Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) program, DEA-assisted annual marijuana seizures in California have fallen over 60 percent percent since 2010," said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, in an email.

 

Most likely because of a lack of funding partly due to the economy. However their was another important development that contributed significantly and seems to be  a gift from our recent Atty Gen E.Holder.  Turns out the major part of their funding came from "Civil Asset Forfeiture" anyone not aware of how this worked was basically local and state popos used Federal Law to forfeit peeps possessions then kick back a token to the Feds.  

 

    It was a very vicious cycle of despotic self aggrandizement with oppressive tyrannical practices that allowed them to abscond with billions in cash and personal properties.  It still exists but has been severely restricted as mentioned in the third link.

Edited August 29, 2015 by solabeirtan

[+Malamute]

The numbers in the original article are from 2013(DEA).

 

 But what happened was Gov. Jerry Brown(D- Moonbeam) cut out CAMP funding when he became governor.  That was about 40% of all DEA funding in California. Coupled with the fact the Justice Department under Eric Holder(Obama Appointee) slowed the funding on the federal level.

 

 This is one of the reasons I try to get municipalities, counties and the State to cut Drug task force funding in Michigan.  It will take an LSD loving democrat to make it happen though it seems, because Republicans find Drug task forces finger lickin good.