news story / By John C. Osborn

Fear Factor

Looking back on the 2009 CAMP season

(Oct. 1, 2009)  Seasons pass like the fog creeps across the landscape here — summer to autumn, baseball to football, sown seeds to bountiful harvests. So it is with marijuana in places like Humboldt County, where isolation and optimal weather create a breeding ground for vast commercial (and illegal) grow operations. And as the loud booming swooshes of the Campaign Against Marijuana Plantation helicopters fade in every corner of the county yet again, what is revealed in their wake is a simple fact — the pot just keeps on growing.

Despite increased enforcement and improved tactics, BNE Special Agent and Public Information Officer Michelle Gregory said more and more gardens are popping up.

“The plants have always been out there,” she said. “We’re just getting better at spotting them.”

This year was record-breaking for CAMP, with about 4.3 million plants being eradicated statewide thus far, compared to about 2.9 million last year and about 621,000 in 2004. Put it this way: CAMP started in 1983, and this year’s operations alone made up about 25 percent of all the plants seized in the organization’s history. But what is most surprising is how Humboldt ranks up with other counties.

Despite this area’s reputation for being the marijuana mecca of the state, if not the country, Humboldt and Mendocino fall lower than one would think on the charts. Other counties, such as Lake, usually rank at the top.

Gregory attributed this to the perception here in the Emerald Triangle that marijuana is more community-oriented, more of an economic engine providing jobs to the area. The county is also more isolated and rugged. In Lake its a different game, where the terrain is flatter, the rains heavier and the community perception different.

“Lake (County) has always been huge for us,” she said, “year after year after year it’s been up there.”

According to CAMP, officials raided 24 gardens this year in Humboldt, netting 134,976 plants, of which 104,443 were from gardens on privately-owned land. In one operation alone, 36,720 plants were seized from a grow site on private property. Break that down into cash, with one plant yielding on average one pound of buds with a street value equal to about $4,500 and that’s about $165,240,000 from one garden. Big business.

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