DEPUTIES SEIZE MARIJUANA PLANTS, CONTINUE WAR ON DRUGS

POINT PLEASANT - During the summer months, many gardeners are usually
out tending to their gardens of vegetables or flowers.

The same probably can be said about another type of crop, but this one
is considered illegal - marijuana.

Last week, members of the Mason County Sheriff's Department went out
looking for marijuana in different areas of the county. Most of the
concentration was in the Bend Area, Sheriff Scott Simms said.

"We were targeting the smaller groves," Simms said. "These plants are
the ones that get back into the communities and to our children."

He said the department is working on an aggressive campaign of
targeting the smaller growers as well as looking for those who have
larger groves that are sold outside the county.

Simms said deputies also have found more than 500 plants growing
indoors in the past two weeks, and two people were taken into custody
in separate incidents. In fact, he said deputies are not finding as
many marijuana patches outdoors as they are inside.

"We are successfully damaging the growers' ability to grow marijuana,"
Simms said. "This is the first year we have made a major difference in
the amount of marijuana groves that are out there."

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse Web site, marijuana
is the most commonly abused illicit drug in the United States. It is a
dry, shredded green and brown mix of flowers, stems, seeds and leaves
derived from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa. The main active chemical
in marijuana is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It is usually
smoked as a cigarette or in a pipe. Marijuana smoke has a pungent and
distinctive, usually sweet-and-sour odor.

THC acts upon specific sites in the brain called cannabinoid
receptors, which kicks off a series of cellular reactions that
ultimately lead to the "high" users experience when they smoke
marijuana. The highest density of cannabinoid receptors are found in
parts of the brain that influence pleasure, memory, thoughts,
concentration, sensory and time perception and coordinated movement.

Research on the long-term effects of marijuana abuse indicates some
changes in the brain similar to those seen after long-term abuse of
other major drugs.