15,000 WILD POT PLANTS BURNED

A vestige of Minnesota's farm history went up in smoke in northern
Washington County on Thursday, under the watchful eyes of Minnesota National
Guard members and county narcotics officers.

They mowed, piled and burned about 15,000 naturally occurring marijuana
(hemp) plants.

The effort was part of a National Guard program to eradicate marijuana,
conducted in cooperation with the county sheriff's office.

"It's a situation we try to keep under control for public safety," said Sgt.
Patrick Olson with the Washington County Sheriff's office narcotics task
force.

People are more likely to get sick than high from smoking the wild
marijuana, authorities say. But sometimes higher-octane plants can be found
among the wild growth. And some people still harvest the wild pot and mix it
with cultivated marijuana.

"Every year we get a complaint of kids picking ditch weed," Olson said.

The National Guard program, "Emerald Harvest," has been around for four
years, said Spc. Anna Le Wicki, a Minnesota National Guard spokeswoman.
Teams killed about 3 million plants in the first three years but destroyed
more than 4 million (hemp) plants this year alone.

The boost comes from better reporting of problem areas, better equipment and
a higher profile, Lewicki said. One large field in Sherburne County recently
yielded more than a million plants, which authorities burned.

How times change.

Once those piles of marijuana (actually hemp) would have been a farmer's
cash crop, to be processed into fiber and related products. Now they are
listed among the 11 noxious weeds in Minnesota.

One farmer even mowed a large stand of wild weed on his property recently
after an officer told him it was there, saving the team the trouble.

Farmers grew it roughly during the first and second World Wars, said Bob
Olson, an extension educator for the Washington County extension service.
"It's not uncommon to find hemp growing all around the state of Minnesota."

Yet the purple haze on Thursday may be one of the last big burns in
Washington County, said Sgt. Patrick Olson of the narcotics unit.

"I think there will always be a little bit growing around, but for the
bigger fields, this will be about the end of it," he said.