 [56] NORML (1:375/48)  NORML 
 Msg  : #3593 [10]                                                              
 From : Myopic Glaucomic                    1:217/2         Sun 21 Aug 94 15:40 
 To   : All                                                                     
 Subj : Fresno Bee - 8/19/94                                                    

           POT FARMERS IN MADERA PRODUCE A BUMPER CROP

                       By Charles McCarthy
                         The Fresno Bee

  MADERA -- Marijuana is among Madera County's hottest cash crops this
summer, with nearly $1 million worth of the illegal plants already
harvested by law-enforcement officers.

  And police have only cut away the tip of the crop: The state values
mature plants at $3,000 each, a point on which Madera County narcotics
agents and three advocates of legalized marijuana agreed this week.

  "There's nothing in the grocery store that I've seen that comes at
that price," said Sgt. Dirk Kinkel of the Madera County narcotics
enforcement team, or NET.  "It's a big cash crop because it's illegal."

  In May, June and July, NET officers found some 3,000 plants, records
show.  And the harvest continued in August.

  "We've probably harvested more marijuana this year than in the past
couple of years combined," Kinkel said.  "We found 2,300 plants in one
garden alone."

  Police admit they are finding only a fraction of the marijuana that
is grown.

  "Actually it's all over," Kinkel said, "Up in Chowchilla, you get them
in the back yards of houses.  One person in the [Madera] Ranchos had 34
plants in the front yard -- in the flower bed."

  Figures are not in for August, but in July the Madera County NET team's
finds included:
Thirty-four marijuana plants growing in a Madera front yard.  Two suspects
arrested.
An irrigation system near Coarsegold feeding 130 plants.  Two suspects
arrested.
Ninety-eight plants growing along a slough bank near Berenda. No suspects.
Twenty-three plants growing near the end of Road 23 and the Ash Slough
near Chowchilla.
Thirteen plants at a Chowchilla residence
Five plants at another Chowchilla residence.  Two suspects arrested.

  Three advocates of legalized marijuana said this week they want to make
their arrests in Madera County in July a national test case for their
cause.  They chose Madera County to put Marijuana laws to the test
because one of them owns land near Coarsegold.

  There is plenty of room in the county to raise bumper crops of marijuana,
the advocates say.  Mountains and forests are ideal for growers who do
not want to challenge police.

  Self-admitted marijuana farmer Ron Kiczenski said if hemp is not already
the county's top crop, he would like to make it so.  If he and other
marijuana farmers could sow and harvest their crops, it would create jobs
and help ease the county's financial strain, he said.

  "If it was legal, the county could tax it," Kiczenski said.

                            MARIJUANA PATCH

  On Sept. 20, Kiczenski and friends Doug Weissmann and Craig Steffens
are scheduled for a preliminary hearing in the Sierra Justice Court at
Bass Lake.  They are charged with planting and cultivating marijuana and,
after being released from Madera County Jail, returning to the mountains
to continue tending their marijuana patch.

  The three men were arrested July 4 after they announced their intentions
to grow marijuana and put up a sign beside Highway 41 near Coarsegold that
said: "3-Hawk Stand -- Cannabis Planting 100 Yards Ahead -- Turn Right."

  The trio contend marijuana has medicinal, recreational and commercial
uses, among them the manufacture of fiber board.

  "They  figured it was the Fourth of July and it would be recognition
because it was Independence Day,' Kinkel said.

  Kiczenski and Kinkel agreed the arrest was amiable.

  But, "cultivation of marijuana is a felony," Kinkel said.  "As long as
it's against the law, I have to enforce the law.  That's what I get paid
for."

... Be wise, Legalize, Medical Marijuana!


--- WM v2.04/92-0348
 * Origin: ZDS-ONLINE INFORMATION  MADERA CALIFORNIA - (1:217/2)

