Marijuana Farmers Pushing Southward : Drug trafficking: Growers from Northern California are trying to elude a widespread crackdown by gradually shifting their operations to forest land in Ventura County.

Law enforcement authorities confiscated 32,588 marijuana plants from the Los Padres National Forest last year, the second-largest total of marijuana seizures from any national forest in the country.

Authorities said the massive haul, double the number of plants uprooted the year before, came largely from the disruption of a ring of marijuana farmers growing in remote areas of the forest that stretches across northern Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

They said it also reflected a trend of Northern California marijuana farmers moving south to avoid the multi-agency Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.

“A lot of what we are seeing are the growers in Humboldt and other points in the Emerald Triangle who are getting pushed out and coming down here,” said James W. Burton, a U.S. Forest Service agent in charge of law enforcement in the forest.

Burton said he and his staff have stepped up their efforts too. Helicopters from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and the California National Guard allowed his crews to spend more time last year conducting aerial surveillance of the 1.7 million acres of forest land.

Yet, Burton estimated, authorities discovered only half the marijuana grown in the sprawling wilderness. “We are getting better at detection, but unfortunately the growers are getting better at hiding,” Burton said.

Growers camouflage their plants by placing them next to other foliage or under a canopy of trees.

Marijuana plants must receive direct sunlight to flourish, however, and that can give them away. Often it is when the sunlight hits the brilliant green leaves that the plants can be spotted from the air.

“Last year we probably got in 10 flight days on the Ventura portion of the forest, which wasn’t enough,” Burton said. “A lot of time it is being up there at the right time of the day, when the sun catches it just right.”

To avoid detection, growers have abandoned the large marijuana plantations for smaller plots spread over large territories. They are harder to spot from the air, and some can escape if others are raided.

“Most growers have moved indoors,” said Tom Alexander, editor of Sinsemilla Tips, an Oregon-based trade journal for marijuana growers. “The remaining outdoor growers are more and more sophisticated.”

Alexander, who periodically surveys growers, said: “The techniques that they are using are outfoxing the police. For example, some growers place marijuana plants on small platforms in trees.

“It’s a multibillion-dollar industry,” Alexander said. “They are not going to retire. They have new ways to do things.”

Edward Few, the Forest Service’s chief law enforcement officer, acknowledges the lure of growing high-grade marijuana that brings $2,500 to $3,000 a pound.

“We know that when we apply pressure in some areas, it will sprout up in new areas,” he said in a telephone interview from Washington. “We just have to maintain the pressure over time so dopers will realize that federal public lands are not a safe haven to grow dope.”

The Forest Service’s annual drug-control report released last week shows a 21% increase in the number of marijuana plants confiscated on forest land in 1989.

The Daniel Boone and Redbird national forests in Kentucky led the nation with 157,967 plants destroyed. The Los Padres National Forest was a distant second with 32,588, followed by national forests in Missouri and Arkansas.

Before the crackdown in Northern California, Shasta and Trinity national forests often ranked near the top of the list. Most of these growers have moved indoors or to other areas, including the Southeastern United States and elsewhere in California.

“In Southern California, the growing season is so long, if they can find a source of water they can grow during a large part of the year,” said John Ruff, the Forest Service’s California regional agent in San Francisco.

The drought has made it tougher for marijuana farmers in Los Padres. “There isn’t a lot of water in this part of the country to begin with,” said Ron Bassett, a Forest Service ranger for the Ojai District. “In a good year it’s tough to find water.”

But ingenious marijuana growers meet the challenge by damming streams or digging wells and then laying black plastic pipe to their gardens, sometimes for miles. In a seizure of a 650-plant garden about 15 miles north of Ojai last year, Bassett said, he found battery-powered timers for watering and other high-tech gear.

“Some of the real good ones use solar,” he said. “They get more sophisticated than you would believe.”

Last year, Forest Service agents and sheriff’s deputies found the largest plots off California 33 a few miles into Santa Barbara County.

In clearing out one garden of 10,000 plants, authorities spotted four others plots and ultimately arrested six people. Two of them were undocumented workers from Mexico, and two others had work visas.

“It appears that there was money behind it from within the United States,” Ruff said. Although the six men were prosecuted and sent to prison, authorities were unable to track down the source of money for what Ruff believes is a new, organized method of marijuana growing.

“They grow as much as they can and make phenomenal profits if they get away with it,” he said. “If they get caught, they don’t risk arrest, and traditionally illegal aliens usually get deported.”

Last year neither local nor federal authorities found as many marijuana plants on the Ventura County side of the forest.

Burton, who oversees the entire forest, said two forest fires in 1985 burned much of tree cover and other foliage marijuana growers like to use as camouflage.

“The cover is coming back,” Burton said, “and we are starting to see people moving back in to grow.”

POT SEIZURES

National forests with the largest number of marijuana plants confiscated by authorities in 1989: National forest: Plants seized * Daniel Boone Natl. Forest and Redbird National Forest, Ky.: 157,967 * Los Padres Natl. Forest, Calif.: 32,588 * Mark Twain Natl. Forest, Mo.: 24,032 * Ozark, St. Francis, and Ouachita national forests, Ark.: 20,380 * Cherokee Natl. Forest, Tenn.: 16,149 * Sierra Natl. Forest, Calif.: 16,146 * Cleveland Natl. Forest, Calif.: 15,855 * Five N. Carolina natl. forests (Pisgah, Nantahala, Uwharrie, Croatan, Yadkin): 15,174 * Umpqua Natl. Forest, Ore.: 13,546 * Four natl. forests in Alabama (Wm. B. Bankhead, Talladega, Tuskegee, Conecuh): 11,010 Source: National Forest Service