Fertile federal lands in the Southwest have become a dangerous new battleground between entrepreneurs cultivating potent marijuana strains and government agents trying to eradicate the weed.
Although forestry officials are concerned about the pot, they are more worried about homemade booby traps -- including hand grenades, shotguns and snakes -- that are used to protect the crop.
The problem has become a major one in many states because marijuana growers have discovered the penalty for cultivating pot on federal land is less than growing it on state land. It is only a violation of U.S. agricultural laws to grow it on federal land, but growing it on state land amounts to possession, which carries a harsher penalty.
Some marijuana has been found in all 155 national forests in 43 states, but law enforcement officials are even more concerned about the methods being used to protect the crops.
'There are elaborate plantations with irrigation systems and armed guards and surveillance,' said Ernie Anderson, the Forest Services' law enforcement coordinator. 'They move into a very remote area and effectively close it off to use by the public.'
The government's General Accounting Office recently quoted a Forest Service official as saying: 'It is only a matter of time before a forest visitor or one of our employees is seriously injured or possibly killed because they stumbled onto an illegal marijuana plantation.'
Arkansas' Ozarks are one of America's prime marijuana-growing locations and longtime residents say pot clearly has replaced moonshining as the area's major cottage industry.
In April, a forest ranger accidentally waded into a marijuana patch in the Ozark National Forest, but was stopped by a gunman who searched him, then ordered the ranger to 'get off my mountain and never come back.'
A group of 150 Forest Service employees, state policemen, FBI agents and county sheriffs returned, uprooting and burning more than 10,000 plants worth an estimated $20 million. Six people were arrested.
The marijuana plants, up to 12 feet tall, were being cultivated on 100 plots of remote land.
Forest Service officials say the yearly marijuana crop grown in the Ozark and Ouachita national forests in Arkansas approaches $200 million. If the estimate is correct, the total far exceeds the value of timber harvested on Arkansas federal lands -- in a state where forestry accounts for a third of all income.
Bobby Hicks of the Arkansas State Police says marijuana growing on federal lands is big.
'It's so big we can't control it,' he said.
Jim Crouch, forest supervisor of the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest, said some marijuana farmers use guard dogs, carry shotguns and patrol their prized plots clad in camouflage suits. The precautions are to protect the pot from other growers as well as law enforcement agents, Crouch said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration's chief of domestic marijuana eradication, Larry Carver, says Arkansas is now reputed to be the second largest marijuana-producing state in the nation, behind California.
Arkansas marijuana is reputed to be America's third best in quality, behind the Hawaii and California crops.
One Arkansas resident, described as a marijuana entrepreneur, told a reporter: 'Arkansas has been so put down. We want to give Arkansas grass an international reputation. We call it Razorbud,' in honor of the state university's football team, nicknamed the Razorbacks.
'The amount of marijuana being grown on federal property has increased drastically in the last two years,' said Dale Smallwood in Rolla, Mo.
Smallwood, special agent at the 1.5-million acre Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozarks, added: 'It has increased 50 percent this year over last year.'
A new aspect of the problem in Missouri, said Smallwood, is that people come in and rent old property adjacent to the national forest land and plant marijuana on the federal side.
'Lots of successful farmers and businessmen are into it because it's a very lucrative business,' said Scott Mitchell, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
He said high unemployment no doubt has increased the attractiveness of marijuana farming. Mitchell said the growers include farmers, respectable ranchers and athletes.
'There's no real definition of a dope grower,' he said. 'Most of the bigger ones have an agricultural background.'
His agency is trying to put the heat on this year, Mitchell said, and he expects to make 200 arrests before the end of the season. He said most growers who are arrested carry weapons and law enforcement agencts are afraid of being shot.
Some fields are booby-trapped with shotgun-shell grenades and rattlesnakes without rattles, Mitchell said, but most of the precautions are to protect the marijuana from competitors.
'They aren't as scared of 'the man' as much as they're scared of each other,' he said.
Forest Service officials in Texas say there have been a few raids on marijuana patches on public lands.
'This year we've recovered three patches,' said Bill Ball, a Forest Service special agent based in Lufkin. 'One had 97 plants, there were 45 in another and about 20 in the third. I'm not saying it's not out there -- I'm sure it is -- but in Texas it's not in great quantities like some other states.'
Ball said Texas is unique because its national forests are not particularly remote, so it's harder to hide a large crop.
In New Orleans, Robert Bryden, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, said the problem of marijuana growing on federal lands is becoming more widespread.
'The dope trade is no longer relegated to a certain class of people,' he said. 'Everyone has the propensity to grow marijuana today - especially in the South, where we have the climate and the facilities. Marijuana can be grown almost all year here.
'It's strange to see an 18-wheeler back up to a barn,' Bryden said. 'One might suspect the truck is being used to haul something besides hay.'
In Kansas City, Mo., Richard Lenning of the Army Corps of Engineers said marijuana grows naturally in Kansas and is a good addition to the natural scene because quail and mourning doves eat it.
'For the most part it's out there as part of the natural scene and we pretty well leave it alone,' said Lenning. 'But we do have some areas, especially near metropolitan areas, with people going out and wanting to do some harvesting.'
Jefferson County Sheriff Carl Eisenhower of Topeka said agents have found some marijuana harvesting operations and made several arrests. He said his officers seize about 300 pounds of marijuana a year.
Charlie Mook, special agent for the Forest Service at the Cibola National Forest near Albuquerque, said marijuana growing on federal land in New Mexico is fairly widespread because a lot of the areas are remote and not patrolled that much.
Marijuana cultivation has been discovered in all of New Mexico's five national forests -- Cibola, Carson, Santa Fe, Lincoln and Gila.
Forest rangers have no authority to make arrests, he said, but pass on information to other agencies. He said that, instead of going out in the woods and cultivating a large crop of pot, growers will scatter it out in the timber where it's difficult to spot.
Mook also said, 'We've had reports that the people who are cultivating it, or harvesting it or whatever, have been armed -- the same kind of stuff you're getting everywhere -- California, northern New Mexico. It's a cash crop, so they're going to protect it.'
