
Backcountry Drug War - hownottowrite
https://www.biographic.com/posts/sto/backcountry-drug-war
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gumby
Legalization hasn't helped. I have a vacation house (shack, really) in
Calaveras county. There was a recent referendum question banning growing pot.
It was portrayed as "you wouldn't want this next to your house/your wheat/your
vines" but really it was funded by the pot growers who didn't want the legal
competition.

It's a problem because I like hiking up there but there are no go zones where
you have to be afraid of running across pot growers or meth labs. Fortunately
at least they aren't interested in the higher altitude areas. But a good part
of the land in the county is simply public land (there's only one town in the
county) so you have to be a local to stay out of trouble.

~~~
jzawodn
Which town in Calaveras?

(We're not far away, in Groveland...)

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gumby
I'm in Murphys, and the place that's most scary is up along the south part of
the Arnold Rim Trail, though there are others. But once you get up by Alpine I
think you're safe, out of hunting season at least.

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jonahhorowitz
This is so tragic. I wonder if legalizing the recreational use of pot
nationally will take enough of the profits out of it to reduce demand for this
kind of illegal grow site.

~~~
dkoubsky
Well certainly nobody feels its necessary to run illegal corn growing
operations in national parks. But as long as legalized drugs have a
significant price premium over black market drugs, then incentives for this
behavior would still be in place.

~~~
wybiral
Counter point: I can probably brew alcohol for cheaper than I can buy it. But
the convenience, availability, and legality makes up for the cost.

~~~
drooogs
alcohol is a bit different than other drugs in that people also appreciate it
as a culinary experience. most users of other drugs are not willing to pay
2-10x as much for the same drug in a better tasting form.

~~~
wybiral
Having been to a legal marijuana shop and having had several pothead friends
growing up I can confirm that marijuana users have all kinds of appreciation
for culinary aspects of their drug. That's obviously different with pharma
drugs, but for plants I think there's a comparison.

~~~
drooogs
honestly I would believe this, but in my experience people are spending the
extra money to get strains that are either more potent or have different
subjective effects. I've never known anyone who would pay $100 for a gram just
for it to taste good.

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rl3
While it feels odd to be advocating surveillance, a massive network of UAVs
equipped with infrared imaging would be very useful here.

Have that same network double as forest fire early warning, and it'd probably
pay for itself.

~~~
hermitdev
Having grown up in Western Montana in the 80s and 90s on the edge of the
national forest, we became very accustomed to having unmarked black
helicopters flying low and slow over our land. Closest thing to nefarious was
my brother & I taking shots at soda cans with the .22 rifle & 20 gauge
shotgun.

We also had low and slow flying Cessnas for fire spotting, and we were also in
the flight line of retardant bombers flying south. So, summers were generally
pretty noisy for us as far as aircraft noise goes. The Cessnas & retardant
bombers were flying so low, slow & close to the house, you could read the tail
numbers with your naked eye. The old bombers in particular really stuggled to
gain altitude. We were about 20 miles from the airport, and about 1000 feet
over the value floor, and they were seldom higher than straight out horizontal
from our deck.

Don't need UAVs for forest fire detection - already have MODIS [0] (and other)
satellite imagery for that. New fires are detected via infrared usually in
less than 24 hours.

[0] [https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/](https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/)

~~~
rl3
> _New fires are detected via infrared usually in less than 24 hours._

That's not enough. Per the forecasted fire danger map[0]:

 _" Extreme - Fires start quickly, spread furiously, and burn intensely. All
fires are potentially serious. Development into high intensity burning will
usually be faster and occur from smaller fires than in the very high fire
danger class. Direct attack is rarely possible and may be dangerous except
immediately after ignition."_

The lesser two classes have similar narratives. Given the speed at which fire
spreads, earlier the detection the merrier.

As an aside, I was going to suggest artillery as a potential candidate for
immediate response, but it seems that's already been thought up.[1]

[0]
[https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/afm/current.php?sensor=modis&extent=...](https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/afm/current.php?sensor=modis&extent=conus&type=firedanger)

[1] [https://wildfiretoday.com/2016/08/25/boeing-wants-to-
fight-w...](https://wildfiretoday.com/2016/08/25/boeing-wants-to-fight-
wildfires-with-a-howitzer/)

~~~
hermitdev
Generally, fires that start close to populated areas are reported quickly, in
my experience. And are responded to fairly well.

Last year, a slow moving fire in Montana that started from lightening ended up
costing my parents' home after it made a small move, out of town hotspots made
a shit call and lit a back burn on a Western facing slope, and then just
watched it all burn down in the heat of afternoon and the height of eastern
blowing winds. In other words, they lit the fire, expecting it to go west, but
hot, dry winds blowing to the east blew it right onto the areas they sought to
protect. Lawsuit is still pending, but my parents are at least covered by
insurance, but the FWS also showed growes negligence that day, in my opinion.

Prior to that experience, we'd had 3 or 4 lightning strikes in the area. All
reported locally, and crews were on site within 48 hours. Difference was, this
time, the strike was in very difficult terrain, they couldnt get to it, so
they let it burn. They put in fire breaks and ran hoses for sprinklers along
the firebreak, but they didn't even have the lines charged for the sprinklers
when they lit the back burn. Then, like I said, they just watched while homes
burned that they had setup to protect.

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sathackr
So I can't view the site in a mobile browser without rotating to portrait
"please rotate your device", and when I force desktop browser, I can't zoom.

Why do sites do things like this?

~~~
mirimir
I can't even open the site in Firefox. Had to get the text-only version from
Google cache. And yes, why make it so hard to read (you know) text?

