AS PLANTS SPROUT UP, STATE POLICE DIG DEEP

The call was placed by a hunter scouting deer territory in the woods of
rural Winslow Township, Camden County. Marijuana plants were growing deep in
a thicket near a local sand quarry, he reported to a special State Police
hotline.

Within hours, two troopers from the State Police marijuana eradication task
force, two National Guardsmen and an investigator with the Camden County
Prosecutor's Office - dressed in camouflage outfits and with service weapons
on their hips - reached the scene.

Twisting and bending their way through the brush, they maneuvered themselves
to a clearing no more than 15 feet in diameter and enclosed by chicken wire
and nylon fencing. There before them, each stretching its bright green
leaves and pungent buds toward the sun, were dozens of marijuana plants,
ranging in size from 1 foot to 5 feet.

"It's a nice sized plot," noted State Police Detective Sgt. Joseph DeBiase
Jr., a member of the task force. "Whoever the grower is knows what he's
doing, though he was a little late getting a few of his plants in the
ground."

For DeBiase and other law enforcement officers assigned to search for and
seize marijuana, and arrest those who cultivate it, the early fall harvest
season - particularly during a year of lush rainfall - is the busiest time
of year. In fact, this year has been so busy that the task force is spread
too thinly to conduct stakeouts and wait for a suspect to show up and be
arrested.

The officers conducting Wednesday's raid, fully aware that they could
conduct surveillance for days without arresting anyone, instead cut down and
tore up the plants and moved on.

"If we don't have time to do a full investigation and arrest the cultivator,
we feel it's better to get the pot out of the woods," says DeBiase, a
20-year State Police veteran and narcotics officer since 1983. "The
alternative is letting it get to the street."

Within a half-hour, the plants were uprooted by hand, counted and placed in
a military body bag. The first tally put the haul at 299 plants - then 300
on a second count.

"There's got to be a couple more," one of the officers joked. "No one's
going to believe 300 on the nose." Sure enough, it wasn't long before
further scrutiny of the area turned up several additional plants.

Before the day was out, the bag would be dropped off at the State Police lab
in Hammonton to have its contents destroyed, and the hunter will be in line
for a reward from the state's 3-year-old program that offers up to $500 to
anyone providing tips leading to the confiscation of growing marijuana.

This past weekend, the toll-free tip hotline, (888) 798-WEED, received
around 30 calls, said DeBiase. About two-thirds were legitimate, he
estimated, with the rest from pranksters, taunters or people lecturing the
State Police on what a waste of time and resources they feel the program is.

The issue of expending law-enforcement resources on marijuana eradication is
debated at the national level.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, an advocacy
group, believes outdoor eradication programs, such as the one in New Jersey,
do no more than drive up the price of illegal marijuana while subjecting the
police agents who track down the plants to unnecessary risks, like dangerous
flyovers.

Rendering the effort even more questionable is the fact that 98 percent of
the marijuana seized by authorities in the United States is "ditch weed"
unworthy of use, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML
Foundation in Washington, D.C.

"This is a terrible waste of limited police manpower and finances," he
insisted.

But the program has proved effective in reducing supplies of marijuana all
across the country, maintained Michael McManus, a spokesman for the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C.

"What better way to address the marijuana problem than from the grassroots
level," he said.

Drug agents are finding homegrown pot to be four and five times as potent as
the marijuana that was available in the '60s, McManus added. In some
instances, it's become so valuable that it is traded for
cocaine, he said.

What the law enforcement officials and marijuana proponents do not disagree
on is the popularity of pot. NORML says marijuana is the No. l cash crop in
33 of the 50 states, even though every state has an eradication program.

In New Jersey, St. Pierre added, marijuana is the No. 7 cash crop, behind
such agricultural products as cranberries and hay but ahead of apples,
potatoes and wheat.

The State Police do not compile such figures but acknowledge that marijuana
is being grown illegally throughout New Jersey in sizable quantities, more
outdoors than indoors. Funding and training through the DEA, and help from
the counties in locating plots, have helped in the crackdown, they say.

But cutting marijuana off literally at the source has been an initiative the
state got involved in only during recent years. Up until 1997, the State
Police had only one or two troopers specifically assigned to the task. But
as the task force was formed and an emphasis placed on arrests, the number
of seizures (indoors and outdoors) and corresponding apprehensions have
risen dramatically.

In 1994, 21 cultivators were arrested and 1,307 plants confiscated, compared
with close to 2,000 arrests last year and the seizure of more than 3,500
plants. Troopers said they won't know how this year compares until after the
harvesting season is over. Before the season began, they said, arrests ran
slightly below previous years, mostly because the rains that increased crop
yields meant little need for growers to be out in the fields irrigating or
tending the plants.

Most of the marijuana that task force members come upon has been cultivated
by individuals strictly in the business of making a buck, said DeBiase. Good
homegrown pot can fetch as much as $2,000 to $5,000 a pound, more if broken
up and sold in smaller lots, he added.

Investigators have noticed another new development in pot growing. They are
not seeing as many large fields of marijuana as they once did. There was a
time when a tract with a thousand or two plants wasn't all that uncommon.
Today, it would be a rarity, said DeBiase.

That doesn't necessarily mean the cultivators are putting any fewer seeds in
the ground, however. Instead, they're growing marijuana in patches, many
with no more than four dozen plants. This is because the law in New Jersey
says growing 51 or more plants outdoors can be a first-degree offense
punishable by 20 years in prison, DeBiase said.

At a seizure in a Warren County cornfield last month, troopers originally
thought their take would be 40 or 50 plants. But by the time they were done
scouring the field, they'd come up with 400 or so plants.

"There's money being made in pot," said DeBiase, as he headed to pursue a
tip about an indoor grow in North Jersey after the crew was done in Winslow.
"Plenty of money."

The results: Arrests and seizures since the inception of the New Jersey
Domestic
Cannabis Eradication and Suppression program:

Year ARRESTS PLANTS SEIZED LBS.
1992 64 3,292 NA
1993 17 11,030 NA
1994 21 1,307 NA
1995 55 4,059 NA
1996 56 2,531 657
1997 70 2,515 212
1998 1,115 2,363 5,531.50
1999 1,958 3,502 3,423.73
Total 3,356 30,599 9,824.23

THE STAR-LEDGER SOURCE: State Police