Say Anything Blog

Hike on the wrong state park trail in Northern California, and you might find yourself stepping on a Punji stake or a small improvised-explosive-device made from a shotgun shell. If you somehow miss the booby trap and make it further onto the trail, you might likely find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun. Why? Because large swaths of California’s state parks have been colonized by the very drug cartels that have turned Mexican cities like Tijuana into war zones.

In the wake of recent devastating wildfires, faires almost certainly caused by illegal immigrants growing marijuana on California public lands, Time Magazine has noticed the problem.

The damage they do to society is well-known, but drug traffickers, it turns out, also aren’t the most environmentally-minded campers. Law enforcement officials say that a wildfire now raging in Santa Barbara’s Los Padres National park, burning more than 136 square miles, was sparked by a cooking fire started by the hirelings of a Mexican drug cartel which was growing thousands of marijuana plants in the remote canyons.

Far from an isolated incident, the Los Padres fire, according to law enforcement agents, highlights an alarming trend: the invasion of California wilderness and parklands by armed Mexican drug cartels.

The Time writers lament the fact that drug cartels are corrupting the once mellow and ethical Cali-canibus industry and trashing the envoromment.

Of course, because California politicans have spent the state into financial ruin there’s no money to hire rangers to keep forests safe. We have money to hire deadbeats as home healthcare workers but we don’t have money for park rangers.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1917547,00.html?xid=rss-fullnation-yahoo