FEWER MARIJUANA PLANTS CONFISCATED

Summer Flooding, FAA Rules Ground State Police Efforts To Spot Pot From Air
Saturday September 22, 2001

Despite being kept from the air by natural disasters and terrorists, State
Police have worked hard to keep West Virginia from growing a bumper crop of
marijuana.

Troopers, National Guardsmen and those who spot the pot in the valleys and
mountains of the state have been grounded for a big part of the growing
season and now into harvest time.

With slightly more than a month of marijuana eradication time left, State
Police have confiscated about 6,000 fewer plants than last year. Though
there's still time to find more, Federal Aviation Administration rules
enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington are
keeping helicopters grounded.

"We are only flying for incidents that are law enforcement-related," said
Trooper Jay Powers, a State Police spokesman.

The FAA flight rules require the choppers - both State Police and National
Guard - to stay in constant contact with air traffic controllers, Powers
said. That limits work on marijuana eradication projects because the
low-altitude flying needed to spot the pot prohibits pilots from keeping
contact with control towers.

'We really aren't exactly where we should be'

But that's only the current problem. When floods ravaged southern West
Virginia in July, emphasis on finding pot patches declined while troopers
and Guardsmen helped flood victims.

"We really aren't exactly where we should be," conceded Sgt. Steve Jones,
head of the State Police marijuana eradication effort.

Last year, State Police confiscated 39,286 marijuana plants growing in
fields and mountainsides throughout the state. So far this year, troopers
have pulled about 33,544 marijuana plants from the ground.

"Obviously, the assistance given by the flood detail and the lack of air
support has been a problem," Jones said.

Like a number of other Appalachian states, West Virginia's most valued cash
crop became marijuana about 20 years ago. In 1997, the latest figures
available, the illegal harvest was estimated at 86,246 pounds. That ranked
the state, which was 35th in population, as the 16th highest in marijuana
production in the nation, according to High Times magazine.

"Marijuana has become a substantial part of the local economy in the
Appalachia region - it is the No. 1 cash crop here," the federal Office of
National Drug Control Policy wrote in its 2000 report.

"An ideal climate for marijuana cultivation, poverty and a rural geography
facilitates marijuana production and transportation across county and state
lines. There are also 75 public and private airports in the Appalachian
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area."

The Appalachian HIDTA was created by the federal government in 1998 to
combat pot growing in 11 southern counties of West Virginia, along with
Kentucky and Tennessee, all considered the heart of East Coast marijuana
growing.

Typically each summer, troopers work with State Police and National Guard
helicopters, whose crews spot marijuana in remote hills and hollows, then
direct troopers to it. The activity takes place from June through October,
though late September begins the harvesting season.

High Times said West Virginia's 1997 pot crop was the 14th most valuable in
the nation, estimated to be worth somewhere between $448 million and $718
million if sold on the street. That was based on the magazine's 1997
estimate of a price per ounce. West Virginians apparently were paying the
highest average price in the country at $325.

That study estimated the state eradicated 25 percent of the crop that year,
12th highest in the nation. With only 0.69 percent of the nation's
population, the magazine estimated West Virginia captured 1.78 percent of
the national illegal marijuana market.

'They're a little bit smarter now'

The outdoor crop has diminished almost every year, Jones said. "A few years
ago, our biggest job was eradicating marijuana. Now our problem is finding it."

Past efforts have caused growers to move away from large fields and instead
plant in smaller plots, Jones said. "I'd like to think it's the result of
[State Police] having success," he said.

"They're a little bit smarter about [hiding plants] now," said 1st Sgt. Joe
Parsons, a veteran of eradicating marijuana in southern West Virginia.

This year, troopers in the field have had to find a large amount of the
crop by using foot power and informants.

That happened earlier this week when Lincoln County troopers found 294
plants in a remote area near Big Ugly. Parsons said two men digging ginseng
found the plants off a small trail that came off a gas line road on the
backside of a state park.

Like most other efforts, last week's Lincoln County bust resulted in no
arrests. Most growers don't plant the substance on their own land, Parsons
said.

And unlike other parts of the nation, Appalachian pot distributors and
growers tend to be "kin-based and family-oriented," the Office of National
Drug Control Policy report says. They also have been known to be protective.

"An increase in competition in marijuana distribution has resulted in an
increase in drug-related violence," the report said. "Growers have begun
using firearms, explosives and booby traps, which has resulted in an
increased threat to law enforcement."

Parsons has no doubt there is less marijuana being grown in the area where
he works. "I think it's indicative that a lot of people are going to indoor
growing," he said.

Could be, Jones said. "Last year we had a significant increase in indoor
growing," he noted.