Pubdate: Fri, 15 Sep 2000
Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Copyright: 2000 St. Paul Pioneer Press
Contact:  345 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55101
Website: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
Forum: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/watercooler/
Author: John Johnson, Los Angeles Times

POT WARRIOR

Sonya Barna heads California's marijuana eradication task force. Her 
squadron of helicopters dives into remote corners of the state, from the 
steep gorges of the Santa Ynez Mountains to the foothills of the Sierra 
Nevada, carrying crews of eradicators with machetes.

~~~

The pot farmer's worst nightmare is the diminutive, 37-year-old daughter of 
a migrant farm worker whose troops call her Supreme Commander.

Sonya Barna hardly looks the part of the Patton of Pot. She is short, wears 
her fingernails and her brown hair long and cuts a striking enough figure 
in her fatigues that a visiting Ukrainian general recently asked if all 
American women were so beautiful.

But as head of California's marijuana eradication task force, called CAMP 
for Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, she is on pace to break all 
records for the number of pot plants chopped out of California's renegade 
marijuana farms. This summer, her squadron of helicopters has dived into 
remote corners of the state, from the steep gorges of the Santa Ynez 
Mountains to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, carrying crews of 
eradicators with machetes.

Barna's commitment to the war on pot is matched only by the increasing 
sophistication of the growers who have been converting California's wild 
lands into corporate-style pot farms. In recent years, California's 
marijuana industry has undergone a radical change from the time when North 
Coast hippies tended their backyard gardens in Frye boots and drove their 
VW vans down to San Francisco to unload their stash. Today, the pot gardens 
have moved south and tend to be larger than ever.

Last year, a farm in San Benito County yielded 53,000 plants. At $4,000 a 
plant, the formula the state uses to measure the stuff, that was worth $212 
million.

Another major change is that many of the biggest farms are being operated 
by Mexican drug gangs who set up camp deep in remote corners of national 
forest land. These huge operations, complete with 12-foot-tall watchtowers, 
are tended by farm workers paid around $500 a month to guard the plants.

The increasingly high stakes involved were demonstrated with deadly results 
on Aug. 24, when a Mexican citizen was shot and killed while defending a 
pot farm in Madera County. Jesus Erasmo Figueroa-Valencia was shot when he 
allegedly pulled a .45-caliber handgun on sheriff's deputies raiding a 
7,000-plant farm, deputies said.

Some people debate the usefulness of the drug war. Barna is not one of those.

"I don't think we should ever give up," she said on a recent Sunday. 
Outside, her crew was making ready for the next morning's assault in the 
Santa Ynez range. "The more you hit the supply, the harder it is to get."

They call themselves the " 'Shroom Platoon."

Partly, it's because the men and women of CAMP have nicknames for 
everything. One man is called "Red Line" because he is so heavy, according 
to the joke, that the helicopter engine redlines when it tries to carry 
him. "Broker" is always out of money. Barna is "Supreme Commander," for 
obvious reasons.

As for the 'Shroom Platoon, that's a sardonic reference to the way 
mushrooms are grown: kept in the dark and fed manure until the light goes 
on. Then they come alive.

Barna is a mother of three whose gift of chat conceals a fierce drive, 
which she comes by naturally. Her mother worked her way out of the 
agricultural fields to teach social welfare at Fresno State University, in 
the meantime communicating to her daughter an intense work ethic.

After a stint with the San Jose Police Department, she joined the state's 
Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which runs the CAMP program. Since 1983, 
CAMP has teamed up with a variety of federal and state agencies, including 
the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and sheriff's 
departments from 56 counties, to eradicate pot gardens in rural areas.

Originally, there were six teams operating on a budget of $2.5 million. But 
over time, the budget was cut to its current level of $600,000. That 
supports three teams of 13 people.

Last year, Barna commanded the third mobile team, and her success led 
directly to her appointment as commander of the entire CAMP effort, Michael 
Van Winkle, press officer for the Justice Department, said.

"She's very gung-ho," said Van Winkle. "That's the kind of person you need 
as CAMP commander."

With this year's season only half over, Barna's teams already had plucked 
139,000 plants.

All this raises some questions: Just how much pot is out there? And how 
much of it is even a pot warrior like Barna taking off the market? Was the 
shooting in Madera County evidence that the growers are feeling the pinch 
and deciding to stand and fight rather than cut and run when the state 
helicopters fly in? Or are the efforts of CAMP barely scratching the surface?

On the one hand, it's a big state. When you fly over, you see vast 
landscapes of greenery. Picking a marijuana garden out of this patchwork 
would seem impossible. But the M-spotters, as marijuana spotters are known, 
have at least one thing on their side: Pot needs direct sunlight for a few 
hours a day. That means the pot garden, no matter how remote, is visible 
from the air.

CAMP's efforts have drawn the attention of outsiders. Ukraine, facing its 
own marijuana problem, sent a team to consult Barna. CAMP also sends pot 
samples to the University of Mississippi, where they are analyzed for THC 
content. Some samples in recent years have come back at 27 percent, 
compared with 2 percent in the 1960s and '70s, a fact that only reinforces 
Barna's attitude about the drug.

"Pot is not a gateway drug," she scoffed. "It is a drug."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D