Aug 17, 2009
Alan Bock, Los Padres National Forest, marijuana, Orange County Register, public land
A huge wildfire ablaze in Santa Barbara County over the last week has been linked to a clandestine marijuana grow operation in the Los Padres National Forest. As we often point out, prohibition is to blame for these destructive illegal gardens because it leaves this popular agricultural product in the hands of criminals with no regard for the environment instead of legitimate farmers.
Orange County Register columnist and author of "Waiting to Inhale, the Politics of Medical Marijuana" Alan Bock writes in his blog post that the proliferation of these sites on public lands is a result of misguided asset forfeiture laws:
So it’s not surprising that faced with the loss of property whether a crime was proved against them or not or charges were even filed, marijuana growers began to use land that they didn’t own and couldn’t be seized. The best bet was not some poor innocent’s land, but government land, of which there is more than an abundance in the western states, which couldn’t be forfeited because the government already owns it. So the national forests became the preferred venues for large marijuana grows, the forests were in some cases degraded and became less useful to the public they were supposed to benefit — and now we have a major wildfire allegedly started by marijuana growers.