Mexican drug cartels, armed and dangerous, have occupied so much land in So. Oregon and No. California that the local citizenry is warned to stay out for their own safety.

Hunters warned to look for signs of pot grows, avoid confrontations
If you find an illegal pot grow, you should 'leave,' 'consider yourself lucky'
September 25, 2010- Medford, Oregon

[snip]Deer hunters will be taking to the woods en masse next weekend during the middle of the marijuana harvest season, and police are warning hunters to steer clear of any suspected gardens for their own safety.

Already this season, two bowhunters have reported confrontations with armed guards from suspected marijuana gardens on public land in southern Jackson County, which law enforcement officials say has become a growing area for Mexican drug cartels. Hunters who stumble upon features such as irrigation pipes, manually widened game trails, garbage piles or even the smell of cooking tortillas should steer clear and avoid confrontations that could prove dangerous.

"You need to turn around and leave and consider yourself lucky," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. "If you push the issue, you might get yourself in a situation you'll regret."

Hunters or anyone who believe they have stumbled upon a marijuana garden are urged to take notice of their location and leave quickly by retracing their steps.

Oregon Hunters Association has offered a reward of up to $200 for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of people responsible for marijuana gardens or other damage to public lands.

More than 180,000 hunters are expected to take to the woods. About half of Oregon is public land, with the vast majority of it federally owned.

OSP Lt. Darin Lux said Mexican drug cartels have taken advantage of good growing conditions and water availability on federal lands in Southern Oregon and Northern California to cultivate large marijuana plantations, with a definite increase in activity the past three years.

"There's a lot of profit, and it brings a greater need to protect that profit," Lux said. "That's when the arms come in."

Medford police Lt. Tim Doney, a member of the MADGE team, said the confrontations between bowhunters and suspected garden guards occurred during the start of the bowhunting season in late August and the first week of September.

In one case, a bowhunter told MADGE detectives he heard gunshots strike a tree just above his head, and then he was confronted by a man carrying an assault-type rifle who told him to leave, Doney said.

MADGE received a secondhand report of a similar confrontation in the same area.

Two Jackson County SWAT team members shot and killed a man Aug. 11 at a marijuana growing operation deep in the woods. A Jackson County Grand Jury ruled the shooting was justified.

Winters said authorities so far have pulled about 125,000 plants from 30 different gardens throughout a seven-county area of Southern Oregon and Northern California this year.

In these cases, police have noticed that game trails were widened near the gardens and that PVC piping was used to irrigate the plants, Winters said.

Some signs of nearby gardens included walls of cut brush on trails, the pungent smell of marijuana, piles of garbage and piping. Because the caretakers often live at the garden sites, the smell of cooking could be a warning sign.

"There's no way to know until you're almost into one of these, so there's no preventative way to act," Winters said.

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More smoke and mirrors by the GOP

The new 'Pledge' has NOTHING to fix the immigration problem or enforce the LAW.
Tea Party people......Are you going to let the established GOP keep screwing us or are you going to shed these open border hack leaders like Armey, Whitman, McCain and the out of touch fools who designed this phony 'Pledge'????
You ALL despise the democrats when they pull this shady stuff, when will you STOP defending the GOP for doing the same???
Some of the GOP are hijacking the Tea Party movement, which will destroy it. Most of them don't like you any better than the democrats do! You are being USED!

House Republicans Pledge to ‘Establish Operational Control of Border,’ But Say Nothing about Border Fence, Worksite Enforcement or Amnesty
Thursday, September 23, 2010 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75709

[snip] The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representative released “A Pledge to Americaâ€