october 31, 1999
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
UKIAH, Calif - Mendocino County retains its dubious title of top marijuana-producing county in California, with drug agents and growers agreeing that this year's bumper crop is setting records.
"It's growing everywhere," said Sgt. Rusty Noe of the Mendocino County Sheriffs Office.
As the annual harvest winds down, local and state pot-hunting teams say they've yanked about 102,000 plants, most of them mature, from Mendocino marijuana. gardens, the most, ever seized locally. The plants represent more than one-third of the entire volume of marijuana confiscated statewide under the state's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting program.
Bill Lockyer, the California attorney general, estimated that the amount of pot confiscated statewide by CAMP teams was worth nearly $1 billion wholesale, the largest amount of the illicit cash crop ever diverted from the streets. Using the state formula, Mendocino County's share of the confiscated pot would be valued at more than $300 million.
But local authorities concede, and some pot growers happily concur,' that despite the state effort there's more marijuana than ever heading for the underground marketplace.
Noe, who heads the Mendocino marijuana eradication unit, said this year has been the best yet in terms of mature plants seized before they could be harvested.
Noe said, however, that the amount pales in comparison to what is growing in countless backwoods nooks and crannies.
"There's just a lot of dope growing out there. We couldn't possibly get-to all of it," he said.