A HOT, DIRTY WAR ON MARIJUANA

TENNYSON, Ind. - Frank Smith likes to say he would have gotten a "whippin'"
when he was a boy for coming home the way he does these days as an adult.

He is dirty, sweaty, smells like a cornfield and -- in the summertime --
spends hours at a time handling marijuana plants.

"My parents would've killed me," said Smith, a master trooper with 19 years
of experience working for the Indiana State Police.

The rest of the year, Smith is a road officer who works motor patrol like
most other troopers. In July, August and September, however, he heads to
rural fields as part of the agency's marijuana eradication program.

Summer for most people means church socials and softball games. For Smith
and the other state police and Indiana Conservation Officers who find the
equivalent of a stoner's needle in a haystack, the season is all about weed.

Or schwag. Pot. Cannabis. Wacky tobacky. Whatever it's called in a given
area.

Thursday, state police and conservation officers discovered 136 marijuana
plants growing in eastern Warrick County fields. At full maturity, the
plants would've been worth $136,000.

When people see the video clips on the evening news, marijuana "finds" look
like easy work -- several officers standing in an open space that could be
anyone's cornfield.

It's far from being anything that simple. The work is hard, long, hot,
dangerous, meticulous and downright frustrating at times.

"That's the bad thing sometimes," said Sgt. Andy Clark, an Indiana State
Police pilot who serves as a dope "spotter" for the weed-seeking missions.
"We're working our butts off just to get to one or two plants at a time.

"Of course, that's also one or two plants that won't make marijuana that
gets to the streets."

Every mission starts with Clark, flying a few hundred feet above the rolling
farmland of southwestern Indiana.

He and another officer will spend hours cruising over fields, forests and
towns looking for signs of marijuana cultivation.

Sometimes, the patches are large enough to see with the naked eye. Other
times, Clark has to circle lower and lower until he and his partner can
determine if that's pot or ragweed in a patch of dirt no bigger than what
could hold an outhouse.

"It takes a trained eye and some practice," Clark said. "It's like hunting
for mushrooms. The first time you go, you think, 'I'm never going to find
one.' Then the next time you go, it's a no-brainer."

If Clark believes a site is a good one, he "calls" the patch for the state
police officers working on the ground. Thursday, the group had the added
advantage of using an Indiana Conservation Officer's global positioning
system equipment to help find spots.

From there, the filthy work begins.

In one cornfield near Interstate 64, the group had to go about 100 yards
deep into eight-foot-high stalks.

The officers walk through with their arms in front of their face, like a
boxer blocking a punch, to protect them from the cornstalks' slicing leaves.
Bugs fly everywhere, only slightly more annoying than the particles that
fall from the corn and coat the officers' shirts and pants.

Clark, who kept circling overhead, barked down instructions on when they
needed to move over a row, turn right, or adjust for upcoming obstacles. He
is also there to watch for marijuana growers who may be tending to a crop
when police arrive. Smith refers to them as "the bad guys."

"Andy's our security blanket, too," Smith said. "He makes sure we know if
anyone is there before we get to the place, and tells us if anyone is
approaching while we're working."

Sgt. Todd Ringle, spokesman for the state police's Jasper and Evansville
posts, said the task is an important one.

"People who grow this stuff want to protect their money, so they could be
armed," Ringle said. "It's a dangerous, dangerous job."

Even when the grower isn't present, marijuana crop protection is done by
proxy.

"In northern Indiana, where the competition is more intense, they see a lot
more booby-trapping of patches," said trooper George Smith. "(Reporters)
certainly wouldn't be allowed to go out there (with the police) on those
jobs."

Frank Smith said he rarely sees an ambush attempt here. At worst, there is
the occasional animal trap.

"That could still break a bone, though," he said.

About 50 yards into the corn, the group found their first marijuana patch in
the field. It was in a spot formerly taken by a pair of cornstalks.

The stalks were torn out, and replaced by two marijuana plants that on
Thursday had grown to about two feet tall.

They found 14 more such spots the farther they traveled into the corn. At a
spot just a few miles east, they found 106 "immature" marijuana plants that
Smith estimated had only been in the ground for a couple of days.

But each one, he said, is $1,000 worth of drugs that didn't make their way
to a grower's pocket. Each time, he pulls up the plants, hands them to
another officer and then removes a business card from his pocket.

It reads, "Frank Smith, Master Trooper -- Indiana State Police." Below are
the Evansville post's address and telephone number.

He said it his way of "letting the dope growers know I was there."

"If they want their stuff back, they need to call me. We'll sit down and
talk."

At the end of the day, Smith loads a trash bag containing the confiscated
drugs into the trunk of his car.

When they get back to the post, the drugs are put into a burn barrel, doused
with diesel fuel and burned.

"This is fun work for me," Smith said. "We come out with all kinds of bugs
and ticks all over us and we're dirty, but it's good work."