MARIJUANA CULTIVATION GOES TO POT IN DROUGHT

If your garden is wilting from Florida's drought, imagine what a lack
of rain is doing to another of the state's agricultural products --
marijuana.

In its latest annual report on marijuana eradication, Florida
Department of Law Enforcement agents said the numbers of pot plants
seized across the state last year dropped by about 30 percent.

"If you think you're having trouble keeping your lawn alive," said
FDLE Agent Dave Broadway, "imagine trying to covertly water an entire
marijuana plot."

Law enforcement agencies seized a total of 39,219 plants worth $39.2
million, the agency said. That number was dramatically less than 1999,
when almost 57,000 plants were seized statewide. In fact, it's the
lowest in 20 years.

"Mother Nature has played a big part in the scarcity of the domestic
crop this year," Broadway said. "We've had the hottest Florida and
driest Florida in 100 years."

The Panhandle used to be the hotbed of pot growing, Broadway said. But
he said the drought had pushed the illegal plant cultivation to
Central Florida, where more water sources were available.

For the first time since 1981, when the state began an aggressive
pot-eradication program, Orange County led the state with 6,000 plants
seized.

In the past, Central Florida also was a favorite site for indoor pot
cultivation. In Seminole County, for instance, some growers in 1999
rented expensive homes in Lake Mary and Heathrow as covers for their
pot-growing businesses.

But water restrictions have made even that option more difficult,
Broadway said, because marijuana plants that have short roots and need
lots of water.

The trend for pot farmers is to plant smaller, more widely dispersed
outdoor plots, drug agents said. The motto of the grower, according to
agents, is "one for the rip-offs, one for the police and one for profit."

[Sidebar]

Florida-Grown Marijuana Seized During 2000

County-Plants-Arrests

Brevard 481 - 7
Lake 807 - 9
Orange 6,002 - 18
Osceola 19 - 1
Seminole 613 - 8
Volusia 668 - 7
Florida 39,219 - 406

Source - Florida Department of Law Enforcement