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Drug agents plucking up pot plants

02:08 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 5, 2006

By ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News

Near WENATCHEE, Wash. - Major drug raids are under way all across Washington state right now. But agents aren't kicking in dealers' doors -- they're going straight to the source.

State, local and federal agents swarming the eastern slopes of the Cascades -- from Yakima to Wenatchee -- in a month-long mission to smoke out elaborate grow operations that make Washington the fifth-biggest pot producer in the nation.

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“In the last year we seized over $54 million worth of marijuana and we understand we only got about half of it,” said Sheriff Mike Harum of the Chelan County Sheriff’s Dept. “That's why we're being very aggressive this year and getting out there and hopefully getting it all.”

Authorities know the pot plants will be harvested over the next couple of weeks, so they're hoping to beat the growers to the punch by plucking up the plants before they make it to the street:

The growers often operate 20 miles or more into the forest -- 2,000 to 3,000 feet up the mountainside, places only accessible by foot or helicopter.

Agents have seized about 45,000 plants over the past month alone in this very successful crackdown. A rough estimate is $1,000 to $2,000 per plant

Before you think this is just the work of a few dedicated hippies, think again. Authorities say these grows are tied to Mexican drug gangs that smuggle illegal immigrants into Washington to tend their crops -- all part of a much larger operations that include heroin and meth.

“All these folks that we're dealing with are involved in the methamphetamine trade and the majority of methamphetamine that comes into the state of Washington is coming from Mexico now,” said Lieut. Richard Wiley of the Washington State Patrol. “So this is an easy way for us to identify those groups and go after them.”

But authorities concede that finding the drugs is far easier than finding the dealers. This year's sweep has already topped last year's, hauling in about 9,000 additional plants.