Yosemite's Smokey Problem: Potheads

Ah, Yosemite: That iconic symbol of nature where generations of tourists have hiked, snapped pictures, camped, and ... smoked a lot of weed? As NBC Bay Area reports, drug busts at Yosemite are up 18% in the six years on the record books, and are four times as high as the next closest national park—2,393 arrests between 2010 and 2012, compared to 500 at Yellowstone. “We were comparing it to Disneyland,” says one dad who smelled pot near his campsite. “We see a lot more happy faces here in Yosemite than we did in Disneyland.”

The reasons behind the stats depend on who you ask, with the magistrate in Yosemite Valley saying that many tourists arrive "with a little bit of a spring break mentality." A defense lawyer says that the geographical concentration of most tourists lets rangers focus on a seven-square-mile area, and a local says those rangers take it seriously: “It’s really not fair because they target you,” he says. “They know that people around here smoke pot.” (More Yosemite National Park stories.)