Harvest time again in Payson.

Al_HikesAZ · Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 263 Location: Scottsdale, AZ

Stay alert around Payson.

http://www.paysonroundup.com/section/frontpage_lead/story/24322

Davis2001R6 · Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 5591 Location: Italy

A bit unrealated but I get a kick out of it. Nothing against the wonder people of Payson, but 3 years ago when we first moved here my wife was tasked with opening up the new Blockbuster Video up there. In the hiring process they do a record check on all the applicants. She said more than 1/2 of the people have felony type records and were un-hireable. The funny one was a Mom, Dad, and Son all applied and each of them had criminal records.

azbackpackr · Posted: 7/26/2006, 4:51 am Post subject:

This is just an example of the huge and shameful waste of taxpayer dollars on cop toys, swat teams and the like. If drugs were legal not only could the govt. collect taxes on their sale but there would be far less incentive for the black market, and therefore less of the residual criminal activity such as drive-bys and other types of violent activity.

The street values quoted by the cops are almost always way too high.

The drug dealers love "the war on drugs" because it serves to add to the value of the drugs. The more the govt. tries to crack down on drugs the more they are worth on the black market. This in turn encourages more people to try to sell them.

As for the people of Payson, I guess I had thought most of them were retirees. Now that's interesting, what you said, Tim.

As for the Mexican guys who got caught with the garden, how much you wanna bet they were paid laborers? I'll bet that garden actually belonged to someone else, who didn't get caught. Kind of dumb to plant that many plants in one small area, but hey, if you hire some poor schmucks to take care of it then you can let them take the fall if it's discovered. (On reading further, a linked article, I find I am correct in my assumption.)

The people of Arizona have three times voted for medical marijuana, and have four times signed petitions for it to be on the ballot (petitions were thrown out the last time.) The state legislature keeps overthrowing the will of the people on this issue. 13 states, last I heard, had medical marijuana. What's the big deal? In Oregon you get the Rx from a doctor, you can grow a few plants in your yard. It may be against federal law, but the local cops won't bother you.

I shall hereby step down from my soapbox. Mr. Green

ghoster · Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 152 Location: Scottsdale

War on drugs equals confiscation which goes to the PD that makes the bust, so it is a for profit business on both sides. Think they will give up this cash cow? Read the wednesday edition of USA today to see the confiscations for the week in the US, it goes for pages and itemizes the items seized from cash to farms and houses, cars, etc. Pretty obvious that our country loves the term war. But can't seem to win many these days. Perhaps a little intelligent choosing of which battles to fight and then we might win some. Legalizing and taxing Marijuana might make it less profitable for these guys and create some income for our cash strapped state and country. But that idea has been around a long time. No change for the current time it looks like. The illegal crop produces something like 20 billion a year in profit for the dealers that is an estimate, but still a sizeable chunk of change.

Sande J · Posted: 7/27/2006, 7:40 pm Post subject:

Hmmm, interesting. Since I will be up there on a horse in the backcountry this week I had better double check his grazing area. Could probably haul a bit of it out as well. Wink

_________________
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stone, good in everything..
-William Shakespeare-

DesertDog · Joined: 06 Jan 2005 Posts: 402

How many people (rhetorical question) avoid the use of marijuana as a recreational drug only because it is illegal?

The lobbyists for the massive alcohol industry are not about to let this competition come to pass, regardless of popular opinion.

Who are politicians listening to- their constituents, or those who fund their campaigns? Rolling Eyes

azbackpackr · Posted: 7/28/2006, 6:21 am Post subject:

Possibly there aren't enough constituents out there who actually understand all the ramifications of this issue. There are so many of our fellow citizens who do not have well-developed critical thinking skills, nor do they do a lot of research to back up their beliefs. They subscribe to the right/wrong, yes/no, black/white school of thought. (I wonder if life is easier for them.)

This brings me back to why we ought to scrap the AIMS test and spend more time teaching kids to write. We are going to raise a generation of kids with this AIMS test thing who can't examine a topic from all sides, can't think critically, unless they learn it from their parents.

By the way, it's 6:20 a.m. here in Eagar and we are in the middle of one hellacious thunderstorm! Holy cow! I guess I won't do my bike ride this morning!

Cynhikr · Joined: 09 Jan 2003 Posts: 1197 Location: Tempe, AZ.

Yet again.... "the world is going to pot...

Woman finds 30,000-plus plants growing in Tonto National Forest

Lindsey Collom
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 4, 2006 12:00 AM

TONTO NATIONAL FOREST - Authorities say a woman scattering her mother's ashes in Tonto National Forest stumbled upon what could be the largest marijuana farm ever found in Arizona.

More than 30,000 marijuana plants cover the slopes of a canyon about 20 miles east of Payson. The crop was growing on what investigators said was a 2-year-old operation hidden beneath a canopy of thorny locust trees.

At least four workers nurtured the plants from seedlings to maturity, with some plants growing as tall as 9 feet, authorities said. The workers constructed a sophisticated irrigation system to funnel creek water through half-inch pipes to the garden below, using valves to regulate the flow of water.

"They put a lot of time and effort into these, and I'm sure it just killed them to leave it behind," said Lt. Kirk Bryce of the Department of Public Safety in Flagstaff.

Bryce said nobody has been apprehended in connection with the pot farm.

Arizona authorities have shut down five marijuana gardens on state lands so far this year. In 2005, there were seven major busts that yielded a total of 220,000 pounds of pot with a street value of about $110 million, authorities said.

Rim country has been home to most of the crops. It's rugged, remote, blanketed in forest and teeming with streams, making it "an accommodating host to marijuana trafficking," DPS Sgt. Jack Johnson Jr. said.

Those conditions are similar to other state lands, and the problem is not exclusive to Arizona. Across the nation, growers are utilizing state lands to cultivate marijuana plants, said Robin L. Poague, special agent in charge of the U.S. Forest Service southwest region.

Marijuana is relatively easy to grow. All it needs is soil, water, indirect sunlight and a warm climate.

DPS officials said this week's crop was worth at least $30 million in the Arizona market, perhaps double or triple in central and eastern parts of the country. If the plants had made it to harvest, which was five to seven weeks out, the yield would have been distributed to metropolitan cities nationwide, Bryce said.

The pot farm covered half a mile, its southernmost edge a 30-minute hike from Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery, a tourist attraction. A team of Drug Enforcement Administration agents spent most of Thursday plucking plants from the earth.

A helicopter took the bundles to be burned about four miles south of the field. Authorities could have the field cleared by the end of the weekend.

DPS officials had been watching the field since May 30. Officers attempted to arrest three workers last week but a fog set in, making their escape possible.

The workers were long gone Thursday, but traces of them remained. A shrine of dried flowers and pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe sat beneath a locust tree close to the crop. The place where they held camp a short climb away was littered with food and trash. There was an abandoned tent and sleeping bags, and several black socks hung from a branch next to a pair of jeans.

Local authorities have arrested two people this year in connection with growing operations. Those men, both undocumented immigrants, were detained last month during a marijuana field raid near Skunk Creek, north of Phoenix. They told authorities they tended to the 8,000 plants as repayment for being smuggled across the border, according to DPS.DPS Director Roger Vanderpool said Mexican drug cartels have been behind the pot farms in recent years and aren't afraid to resort to brute measures.

Forest Service employees have warned hikers to beware of marijuana operations, which are often manned by armed guards.

"They will do whatever it takes to protect their product," Vanderpool said. "Will it get more violent? Yeah. These folks don't know whether you're a citizen hiking, law enforcement or a rival drug dealer trying to take the crop."

Meanwhile, Forest Service officials also worry about the damage to the ecosystem.

Poague said it could take years for the land to recover from damage inflicted by the pot growers.
_________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
---Benjamin Franklin

"I wonder what ole' Ben would've thought of the TSA and photo-radar?" -- cynhikr