Pubdate: Tue, 21 Oct 2014
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Copyright: 2014 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830
Author: Sarah Burge

Riverside County

AUTHORITIES BATTLE BOOMING MARIJUANA GROWS

The Proliferation of Backyard Fields - and Fear Among Residents - Has 
Officials Raising the Alarm.

A boom in illegal backyard marijuana grows  rumored to be driven by 
Mexican drug cartels  has sown fear among residents in the 
unincorporated areas of Riverside County.

In Mead Valley, near Perris, a marijuana garden was growing in plain 
sight less than 50 yards from a playground. High-powered weapons, 
such as AK-47s, have been found at some of the grows. And there was a 
marijuana grow at the scene of a fatal shooting in August.

Sheriff's officials say they are well aware of the increase in 
illegal marijuana grows and are aggressively investigating them, but 
they have disclosed little about their progress or what is driving the trend.

Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who raised the alarm 
about illegal activity earlier this year after receiving complaints 
from constituents, said his staff counted more than 300 marijuana 
gardens in his district alone.

"It's frankly scaring the hell out of the neighbors," Jeffries said.

Residents have seen armed men around the grows and fear violent 
crimes in their neighborhoods are linked to them, he said. They have 
told Jeffries' staff that people have been approaching property 
owners offering thousands of dollars to rent their land to grow 
marijuana and that the grows are affiliated with two particular 
Mexican drug cartels.

Jeffries has proposed an ordinance to crack down on for-profit 
marijuana growing, but he has encountered resistance from medical 
marijuana advocates.

Although Mead Valley and neighboring Good Hope are hot spots for 
growing, Jeffries said the problem is widespread across the western 
portion of the county.

Among the communities where sheriff's officials have investigated 
marijuana grows this year are Norco, Woodcrest, De Luz, Romoland, 
Nuevo and Anza.

"The Sheriff's Department is greatly concerned about it," Chief 
Deputy Patricia Knudson said of the increase.

Though the department has a grant-funded marijuana eradication team 
that targets illegal marijuana growing, she said, it is dealing with 
a large number of grows and the investigation process is 
labor-intensive. Sorting out whether a grow is for-profit or for 
legitimate medicinal purposes can be particularly time-consuming, she said.

Sheriff's officials said they received 300 reports of outdoor 
marijuana grows across the county this year.

As of early October, the sheriff's Special Investigations Bureau, 
which handles drug cases, had eradicated a total of 63 outdoor 
marijuana grows  some on public land  and made 66 arrests for illegal 
marijuana growing, sheriff's officials said. That figure doesn't 
include any grows eradicated by the local sheriff's stations.

Sheriff's officials declined to disclose details about their 
investigations, though they did say investigators have found no 
direct link to Mexican drug cartels.

"We have rumors and innuendo," Knudson said, adding that if members 
of the public have information, they should report it.

Organized crime

Though sheriff's officials have been quiet about their efforts to 
curtail the grows, search warrant documents filed by investigators 
bolster the county supervisor's concerns.

In court papers, investigators blame the increase on "large marijuana 
cultivation and trafficking organizations" that have infiltrated the 
county by offering cash payments to property owners.

Robert Sanchez, an investigator with the department's Marijuana 
Enforcement Team, said they suspect trafficking organizations have 
recruited people to obtain medical marijuana recommendations to post 
at grow sites in an attempt to deter law enforcement.

When interviewed by investigators, some people who claimed to be 
growing marijuana for medicinal purposes gave similar, seemingly 
"scripted" answers, Sanchez wrote. Asked to describe their medical 
marijuana use, they spoke of putting plants in a bath of water and 
soaking in it. They said they had never tried the method but that it 
required 99 marijuana plants.

Investigators also have encountered people living at the grows who 
don't have medical marijuana recommendations and who say they are 
paid to tend to the plants.

Sanchez described dismantling one 145-plant marijuana grow on Rider 
Street in Mead Valley in July, only to notice another one across a 
nearby field. When he went to investigate, he found several more, 
including one right along the street. Another grow, along Lee Road, 
was next door to the Mead Valley Community Center where children play 
outside, Sanchez wrote. High-powered weapons have been found at some 
of the grows.

Though sheriff's officials say they haven't established a connection 
between the spike in marijuana growing and Mexican drug cartels, at 
least one man tied to several Romoland properties where marijuana 
grows were found is described in search warrant papers as a 
documented member of a Mexican drug cartel. The man had a fraudulent 
medical marijuana recommendation in his name that he posted at a 
grow, court records say.

Among the grows targeted by sheriff's investigators were a 464-plant 
grow on California Avenue in Norco, and two grows around Anza with a 
total of more than 1,000 plants and 84 pounds of dried marijuana.

A 100-plant grow was found in the rural De Luz area near Temecula. 
That one was eradicated last month by a Drug Enforcement 
Administration task force based in San Diego County. Supervisor 
Jeffries' office learned about it when the owner, who had rented the 
property to marijuana growers, called to complain about the raid.

In Winchester, a man trying to show a potential buyer a property for 
sale on Grigg Lane got a surprise in July when he arrived to find the 
road blocked with a chain-link fence, search warrant records say. He 
was scared away by what he found beyond the fence: a large marijuana 
garden with about 10 men tending it. Deputies later seized 1,190 
plants and nearly 150 pounds of dried marijuana from the property.

Violent incidents

Sheriff's officials said they have no evidence of a direct link 
between violent crimes and the marijuana grows, but court records 
show at least a couple of recent cases in which gunfire broke out at 
grow sites.

Deputies seized 425 marijuana plants and almost 100 pounds of dried 
marijuana at a property on Markham Street in Mead Valley where a man 
was fatally shot on Aug. 27, court records say. Deputies found the 
man dead in the living room of a home on the property. Shell casings 
were scattered around the driveway and along the walkway leading to 
the front door.

And on Sept. 17, deputies were called out to a shooting on Wells 
Street in Mead Valley. Neighbors heard several shots and saw someone 
firing a gun from a moving car toward a vacant parcel where there was 
marijuana growing, court records say. When deputies arrived, the 
people involved were gone, but the deputies found a half-dozen bullet 
casings in the road in front the marijuana garden.

Neighborhoods overrun

Some residents say they are fed up.

A 65-year-old Nuevo woman, who asked that her name be withheld out of 
fear for her safety, said the neighborhood where she has lived for 
decades has been overrun by marijuana growing in the past couple of 
years. This year, there was a marijuana garden right next door to her 
5-acre property and the smell was so pungent she couldn't stand to 
open her windows.

"Something needs to be done and I don't know where to go to get it 
done," she said. "I'm just sick of it."

The woman said she got a call from a man who wanted rent her pasture 
to use for a marijuana garden, too. She said she ended the 
conversation before learning how much he was willing to pay. But she 
suspects some of her neighbors have accepted similar offers.

She would like to move away, but efforts to sell the property have 
gone nowhere, the woman said. During a recent showing, a potential 
buyer inquired about the smell.

"I said, 'It's the marijuana patch back there,'" the woman recalled.

That was the end of the showing, she said.

This month, the woman said, she finally got some relief. But it 
wasn't from the authorities  it was harvest time.

[sidebar]

LAW ON POT

While California voters approved the use of marijuana for medical 
purposes in 1996, growing marijuana plants for any reason remains 
illegal in the county, which also bans medical marijuana 
dispensaries. Federal law prohibits marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom