Sorrowfully, it's once again necessary to write a safety in the woods column. OK, I admit hating the drudgery of writing the "wear orange, don't climb a tree, cross a fence, or jump a ditch carrying a loaded gun" stuff that's been around longer than most of us, but that's not the column I'm talking about.

This safety in the woods column deals with the fact that criminals have discovered the woods are a great place to locate their cash crops, processing laboratories and various hideouts from which they ply their nefarious trade.

Only in the movie "Up the Creek" were the pot dealers a laughing matter, and those chuckleheads were armed like Rambo, so they weren't that far off-base in their portrayal. Many of the criminals inhabiting the woods of the south and west don't speak English, they're members of drug cartels from Mexico who have been imported specifically to tend the cash crops.

They might not speak English, but their way of dealing with intruders is universal - gunfire. Forest Service rangers and state fish and wildlife officers are finding the woods simply aren't safe anymore.

Los Angeles County, California sheriff's deputies have seized an estimated $14 billion in marijuana this year - mostly from operations on public land. Their biggest haul was a record seizure of 116, 000 plants from a single pot farm - located in the Angeles National Forest.

Clandestine methamphetamine labs are the threat across middle America. Indiana state police have issued a warning not to touch items hunters might find in the woods. According to the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Steuben and Noble counties rank among the top five counties in the state for annual deer harvests. Unfortunately, Noble county also carries the dubious distinction of having had 62 methamphetamine labs seized there this year - making it one of the most dangerous places in the state to wander the woods

Meth is highly addictive, relatively simple to make, and profitable. Those three characteristics are all the incentive necessary for the cottage industry criminal to become a cook. They've even refined the recipes to a single-pot method. Sometimes that pot can be as simple as a gas can or glass bottle. Sounds simple enough, but the chemicals used are toxic and these one-pot cookers can explode. That's not necessarily a bad thing when you're talking about cleaning the gene pool of these smalltime "crook cooks" but it's a recipe for tragedy when an adult and well-meaning youth decide to help cleanup the woods.

Indiana even has a Meth Suppression Section and Clandestine Lab Team. Their title says it all - they're dealing with the exploding presence of meth labs - and the problem of cleanup they leave behind.

There have been advances in the crimefighting measures, but the crooks haven't exactly been standing still, either. Police won a small measure of victory when pseudophedrine was taken off the shelves and put behind pharmacy counters. It's a key ingredient in meth, and making purchasers of quantities of the formerly over-the-counter cold medicine sign for it put a dent in the production.

Criminals, in turn, came up with the one-pot method and turned away from the anhydrous ammonia methods. The one-pot enables more meth to be made from the same amount of ingredients.

And with the miniaturization of the labs, the proliferation grew- it's a cycle that doesn't show any sign of slowing, despite the growing numbers of meth labs being seized by authorities.

In the meantime, traveling the woods hunting has become more hazardous for everyone.

Another unfortunate sign of the times.

If you're going out there this weekend - be careful.