April 2010
Mexican Gangs Taking Over U.S. Public Lands
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 hanks to continued lax border security on the part U.S. political elites who are apparently committed to merging the populations of the U.S. and Mexico, drug gangs are taking over U.S. public lands, using them as farms to grow millions of marijuana plants cultivated by a increasingly large army of illegal aliens who pose a very real threat to the safety of American tourists visiting their own national parks.
At Sequoia National Forest in California, not far fromYosemite's waterfalls in the midst of the state's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs have commandeered U.S. public lands for growing marijuana, according to an in-depth report by Associated Press.
"Pot has been grown on public lands for decades, but Mexican traffickers have taken it to a whole new level: using armed guards and trip wires to safeguard sprawling plots that in some cases contain tens of thousands of plants offering a potential yield of more than 30 tons of pot a year," AP reported.
Organized drug gangs who have little or no trouble penetrating America's border in remote areas are growing their marijuana crops in the U.S. on vast tracts of available public land to avoid the risk and trouble of trying to smuggle the finished product in vehicles from Mexico operating on paved roads with border checkpoints.
"Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they've gone to mega, monster gardens," said Brent Wood, of California's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in the Department of Justice.
It's a trend that has drug gangs harvesting millions of plants, not just in the southwest, but all over the country.
In 2008 alone, police across the U.S. reported confiscating or destroying 7.6 million plants from about 20,000 outdoor marijuana farms, AP said.
The secret farms are often created under thick forest canopies or hidden in high moutainous regions. In addition to the farms in Sequoia National Forest, authorities discovered also farms in remote public areas of Texas, Nevada, and even Wisconisn and Michigan.
"Some of the fields tied to drug gangs have as many as 75,000 plants, each of which can yield at least a pound of pot annually," reported AP.
Many of the farms are protected by improvised explosives, a major hazard to unsuspecting hikers and campers. They are frequently patrolled by aliens armed with AK-47s who keep an eye on the farms from hidden perches on nearby higher ground.
Authorities say they do not have the manpower or resources to police vast stretches of remote terrain favored by the illegal Mexican gangs. Often, the illegal plants are discovered by accident.
"They know the terrain better than we do," said Lt. Rik Ko, a drug investigator with the sheriff's office in Fresno. "Before we even see them, they can shoot us."
Michigan State Police Lt. Dave Peltomaa told AP that his officers find less than half of what is being grown.
"I really don't think we are close to 50 percent. We don't have the resources."
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