Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Be careful where you hike

You could put yourself in great danger if you hike up to one of these: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/10/09/news/state/z17039d7a10c1298d882574de000be7f0.txt
.............steve

Hey, that story is about the group I sometimes work with, the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew. Probably going to be doing some work on this with them on the Kennedy Meadows side in a week.

Thanks for the post.

I hate to bring politics into this forum, but...

If we want to see these kinds of illegal activities end, we need to end the prohibition of this crop.

End prohibition and you will destroy the black market for this product, and all of the illegal and criminal activities associated with it.

It has already been proven in 1933 after passing the 21st amendment, repealing the 18th.

Yep - it is now common knowledge for us off-trail hikers to be extremely cautious in the areas we hike - especially southern sierras and KRV related areas.

Some of my friends have resumed habit of hiking with a side-arm; probably a wise choise for some areas. I make sure and take my camera. Take pictures - note times of any suspicious activity / traffic. Report any sight to DFG for followup.

This would be a good place for a National Guard training mission. Legalization is another issue. These people are criminals regardless of drug law. They are screwing up our wild treasures and the State and Federal Govt. should declare war on their operation.

Legalization is NOT another issue...

It is very simple, and it costs taxpayers nothing!
You want to declare war on these criminals? (which I agree they are) You have to change the environment that is creating the demand for these activities...prohibition.

With continued prohibition, there continues to be a demand for the black market to produce. These criminals dont care if you crack down on one area, they will move to another, and ruin it too. The ultimate cost effective, safer way to deal with this is to end prohibition. Dont give these criminals a reason to be here!

Um, they have -- the "War on Drugs" has been going on for years. I for one am tired of their putting pot into the same pot as much more dangerous and addictive drugs. Alcohol abuse causes far more trouble.

southswell and Steve, I do see your point, but my problem is that there are armed criminals in our parks that have overtaken public property. Legalization is irrelevant because they are criminals regardless of whether or not weed is legalized. WOuld you feel different if they were growing crop for heroin or cocaine? Would you feel different if they built a whorehouse along the shores of the upper Kern River?

Dudes! it's the people's property! Get then out and shoot them if you need to.

I do not disagree that these people need to be removed from our forests by whatever means necessary. Make that very clear.

And no, I am certain that you're missing my point.

Understandably. On one of my family canoes trips (Eel River) we were told, just before we put in for a week, that we would be passing marijuana farms along some sections of the river. We were also told that canoeists had “disappeared” while canoeing these particular sections. My Dad decided we were going anyway (the car was already at the “take out” point) but I was definitely checking out the banks of the river for more than just the scenery...

yeah ending prohibition sure eliminated deaths from alcohol. i mean if you exclude the estimated 100,000 deaths per year due to alcohol and untold marriages problems and carnage caused by alcohol and maybe throw in a few thousand arrests that destroy lives for alcohol related stupid behavior.
yeah, i'd say the legalization of alcohol worked out great.
just curious though, how many people have been killed in california by walking into a pot field ?

Alcohol was deadly before and after prohibition.
Marijuana is non toxic and cannot be compared to alcohol. It like comparing asprin to heroin

I am talking about the criminal ramifications of prohibition.
Not the irresponsibility of (some of) those who consume alcoholic beverages.

This pretty much sums up the whole problem. They know they're there, know they're a danger, yet nothing is done. Obviously you can't send in a sherrif and deputy against these thugs, but Calihawk's idea of the National Guard sounds feasible. Mow or burn them down, and lock up (or worse) the persons involved. While this may not get the big bosses, it would likely cause them to look elsewhere for land to steal.

Legalization may sound simple, but simplistic is a more apt description. Likewise, removing speed limits would solve the problem of speeders, but it only makes things more dangerous. The laws are ignored because enforcement is sparse and wishywashy.

While it may be true that alcohol is more physically addictive and causes health issues, grass is not lily-white in this respect. Anyone who's been around even short-term pot smokers knows the cough they develop, and to think you can inhale that stuff for years without issues (including mental issues) is naive at best. And just because we have one legal scourge in our society now doesn't mean we need to add more. Drugs are drugs, they're a cheap and dirty way of dealing with life that doesn't solve anything except momentarily shoving it aside, after which the issue is still there, probably worse than it was before.

Look at the number of people who take booze with them hiking. So you're out doing what you love to do, in a great place you've deliberately chosen that you want to be, and you need to get loaded to enjoy it? Why?? This is only the tip of what having a drug legally and easily available has done...so we're supposed to add more to the list?? Certainly prohibition didn't work, people were already hooked with using a drug to substitute for dealing with reality.

I lived in the Haight-Ashbury during the mid 60's, and felt as many did then, 'legalize everything. I saw firsthand where it led, and it wasted no time. By late 1967 I was out of there, it being a drug-infested place full of losers. I still run into poeple that never got off pot, and while many at least are still alive, they've never developed beyond the "let's get stoned" mentality. Their lives in general are not happy, but that's OK, they can always get loaded.

Folks who use pot are generally very "pro legalization", but of course they would be. They see no harm, as boozers see no harm in a few drinks after work, smokers see no harm in their death run, and the meth users back in the '60's didn't see any harm in a little speed now and then (they still don't...in fact they don't see anything any more).

Complete legalization might get rid of those fields until they find something else to grow to profit from illegally. Cocaine? Maybe that should be legal too. It's very true that having these drugs illegal doesn't eliminate them; however, it at least keeps them from the "approved, something-to-do-after-work" list where booze sits now. At least some people will not get involved, where they might if it were all just fine and dandy and legal.

So sorry, while I agree that if you have to compare one bad thing to another, grass is probably better than alcohol, but compounding our mistakes is not a good solution. A better solution is to quit ignoring the laws we do have, and enforce them, whether it costs lives of the offenders or not. These guys may be vicious and lacking any conscience, but they will stop if their crops keep getting destroyed and their workers jailed or killed.

So, how about if we all take our "blinders" off for just a moment...

Disclaimer: I don't do drugs. Heck, I barely even drink (a glass of wine on a few special occasions per year - that's it.) So, I have no particular bias one way or another, except perferring to see *rational* thought applied to public policy.

The *reality* of the situation is that marijuana is readily available to anyone, at anytime, for relatively little cost. Yes, it's illegal (barely). That has done virtually nothing to curtail it's availability.

Illegality does virtually nothing to curtail demand. I will conceed that probably more people would use weed it it were legal than not, but the number of folks dissuaded by that minor inconvience has to be very, very tiny. Either you're inclinded to do weed, or you're not. If you are, you do; otherwise you don't. The illegality of the drug likely has almost nothing to do with the preference.

So, given that we're spending literally HUNDREDS of billions of dollars a year on the "War on Drugs", and yet, marijuana is still readily and cheaply available to anyone, anywhere, anytime, how successful has the effort been? Not very much apparently.

Given the above, what would legalization change? If the drug were legal:

- Those inclined could "grow their own". Yes, probably do anyway, but now they could be out in the open and without fear of prosecution, i.e. plant the entire back yard.
- Above could see their product to friends and relatives and the local pot cooperative.
- A farmer, if he/she chose, could plant 40 acres and sell the proceeds on the open market.

- Drug lords would be unable to compete with the free market. The sheer volume of folks who would respond to the demand for the crop would overwhelm their import efforts and the economics of having secret pot farms in national forests (Southswell's point)
- Environmental distruction of our precious national forests would stop
- Citizens of the United States would not have to fear assult, rape, torture, and murder because they just happened to be canoeing down the wrong part of a river, or hiking down the wrong trail at the wrong time.
- Drug lords would be deprived of a major source of revenue that they use to support their other drug importation and criminal activities.
- Domestically, gangs too would be deprived of a major source of income that they use to support other criminal activities.
- Fewer people would be jailed for pot related crimes and thereby supported (at what $40K/year each?) by the public
- With reduced flows of cash, corruption of government officials - esp outside of U.S. would be reduced.
- DEA, etc., could focus their money and efforts on the really dangerous drugs such as meth, heroin, etc.
- No, coca plants and opium poppies won't be grown here in place of the pot farms. There's a reason they are grown in the tropics - it's because that's where they grow, not in the arid/cold Sierra, etc.

- Yes, perhaps a small percentage more people would use weed than do now. Personally I doubt it would be a significant percentage, but who knows.
- DUI laws and other "under influence" laws do and would continue to regulate and penalize the inappropriate use of intoxicating substances in dangerous situations.
- Research and education on the long term effects of pot smoking should continue and be shared with teenagers. Heck, with the money saved fighting an un-winable battle, education could be increased.

So, an unsettling idea, but worth some consideration, huh?

p.s. Regarding all the other drugs, I often wonder why we don't simply pay the peasants, say in Peru, to grow, say wheat, instead of coca? The U.S. can easily outspend any drug lord on the face of the planet. Whatever the D.L. offers, we double it for the peasant to grow *food* instead. Have a local employee as a "buyer", they sell on our behalf on the open market. The influx of dollars for a legitimate crop would help create a market economy that would bloom and feed on itself. Peasants get to grow food, with which they could feed themselves, and make money to boot. We put drug production out of business at an extremely cheap cost. Heck, you think the farmers in Afghanistan *care* what they grow? They're just trying to put food on the table. Hey, just a thought.

Gary,

Although you may have had the mindset: "legalize everything"
That is not the way I see it. Trust me, if the demand for cocaine was there, these guys would not be growing pot. They are growing pot because that's were the moneys at. That's what the people want. And the harder you make it for them to get it, the nastier and more evil the people will be that are willing to get it for them. Of course legalizing pot isn't a cure all, nobody said it would solve the drug problem, but it will solve this one.

Your thought process is mainstream and mirrors what a lot of people believe, but that does not make it right. We need to change our approach.

Clamber,

I appreciate your rational argument.

I regards to your quote above: a awesome idea, unfortunately I don't think money is the main motivation for these farmers to grow said crop

Yes Southswell we need to change our approach. And the way we do that is get tough with these turkeys. Make it so they are scared to death to come into our forests and set up shop. We are not tough enough to those that we catch growing the stuff. The drug lords south of the border are laughing all the way to the bank. We could stop them if we really took off the gloves but this county doesn't have the stomach for that. We are too "civilized". And so the gardens will continue. I agree that it a supply and demand issue and the demand is there. But it is wrong to legalize it. Imagine, a state where it is illegal to drive while talking on a phone but it ok to puff on the magic dragon. Then again that sounds exactly like California politics!!! Yelp Yelp