STATE TURNS TO HELICOPTERS AND HOT LINES TO UNCOVER MARIJUANA

TRENTON -- Crime may not pay, but sometimes spotting it does.

New Jersey's efforts to stamp out homegrown marijuana includes a 24-hour
Marijuana Eradication Hot Line offering tipsters a bounty of up to $500.
Anyone who spots marijuana plants, growing indoors or outdoors, can earn
the reward by calling the hot line at (888) 798-WEED.

Since 1992, the hot line and New Jersey's Cannabis Eradication and
Suppression Program together have led to the arrests of 3,356 people in the
state, said John Hagerty, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Police.

The program got a big boost in 1998, when the state police were given two
Air National Guard helicopters, equipped to locate hidden marijuana fields,
as part of the U.S. Justice Department's Cannabis Eradication and
Suppression Program.

The hot line, helicopters, and funding to operate them are part of a joint
partnership between the State police and the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration to attack the cultivation of marijuana, Hagerty said.

Under the program, the state police have confiscated 30,599 marijuana
plants, valued at $3.1 million, Hagerty said.

Getting the word out about the hot line meant advertising in newspapers in
New Jersey, Hagerty said. Billboards were erected and the state police
contracted with NJ Transit to get reward information to commuters.

Meanwhile, the DEA has been training state troopers since 1992 on how to
detect marijuana, as well as acting in an advisory capacity to direct the
state's efforts.

The DEA spends $13 million a year to support the 96 state and local
agencies that have taken part in the program. This year, New Jersey State
Police received a $280,000 grant as part of the program, according to Hagerty.

He would not discuss specific techniques used by helicopter pilots and
state police. In the past, the DEA has used thermal imaging to identify
indoor marijuana growers by detecting the heat from lighting used to grow
the plants.

"The entire state is being covered," Hagerty said.

Deborah Jacobs, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union of New Jersey, criticized the program's tactics, as well as the hot line.

"We think it's an unhealthy practice in a society to encourage citizens to
turn on one another," Jacobs said. "To provide financial incentive in
circumstances where citizens are living in poverty, where people will be
greatly pressured to find financial security, is irresponsible.

"We have lost a huge number of civil liberties in the name of the war on
drugs, the most fundamental being the right of privacy."

The ACLU, which supports the legalization of marijuana, does not have any
cases pending that might challenge the use of the hot line by state police,
however.