TASK FORCE WEEDS OUT POT CROP

Summer Haul Of 50,424 Plants Just Tip Of The Iceberg, Authorities Say

FLORENCE -- When it comes growing pot, D.L. Adkins knows all the tricks.

Adkins, a corporal with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation's Marijuana
Eradication Task Force, said he and his fellow agents managed to confiscate
50,424 plants worth more than $100 million this summer.

But that's just a fraction of what's out there, according to Maj. Ken
Hallford, chief of ABI. He estimates the task force's take this year
represents 20 percent of all the pot grown in Alabama.

"I have never thought that we eradicated the majority of the marijuana grown
in Alabama," Hallford said. "If we got it all, it'd be like losing a large
industry in the state."

But the task force has come a long way, Hallford and other officers say, and
made progress by using helicopters as its eyes.

"Back in the early years it was not uncommon for us to cut marijuana by the
acre," Hallford said. "Now, we're doing it by the plots. They go to smaller
plots trying to hide it from our pilots."

Operating since the 1970s, the task force is partially funded by the federal
government.

ABI agents lead search-and-seize teams mostly made up of local law
enforcement in all the state's 67 counties from May until late September.
The task force operates in the summer because marijuana cannot survive in
cold weather.

"All summer long, I basically live on the road," said Adkins, who had
previously worked as a state trooper.

The rest of the year, agents assigned to the task force work with county law
enforcement in other drug investigations, including finding people who grow
marijuana indoors, Adkins said.

"Every walk of life is growing marijuana, there's no set type," said Adkins,
who has arrested an 82-year-old man growing pot.

Federal funds help cover all the task force's expenses, Hallford said,
except for his agents' salaries and major purchases like the helicopters and
trucks.

West Coast troubles yet to hit:

With tougher border protection following the 11 terror attacks, some state
and national forests face a new problem with marijuana cultivation. As Time
magazine reported recently, Mexican drug cartels are moving into remote
areas to grow pot in the United States rather than risk confiscation as they
cross the border.

Mexican cartels are dropping off immigrant farmers on federal lands in
states such as California, Idaho and Utah with tools to develop marijuana
plantations for months at a time and with weapons to protect the plants
should law officers come snooping.

Cindy Ragland, a ranger with the Oakmulgee division of the Talladega
National Forest in Alabama, said extensive encampments and Mexican cartels
have never been a problem in the state.

"The forests in the West have so much larger of a land base and the
population centers around them are so much smaller that you can have that
situation," Ragland said. "Here, there are small family farms around us."

Adkins also said he doesn't know of any Mexican drug cartels set up in
Alabama. But he expects the worst in the future.

"It's coming," he said. "It's a growing trend."

Looking back, Adkins remembers only one extensive encampment, where the
growers had built a small log cabin on the property they had staked out. No
one was tending the site when he happened upon it.

A day in the life:

As the task force left the Quad Cities trooper post one day recently, Adkins
called his three helicopter pilots to say good morning and chart their
location.

The task force uses State Trooper and National Guard helicopters to pore
over that week's chosen county. The pilot will call in to the ground
officers when pot is spotted, and direct them to the scene.

Most of the pot discovered by the task force is in secluded tracts, on land
owned by someone other than the grower.

Marijuana -- a tall, bushy member of the hemp family known as Cannabis
sativa -- needs a lot of sunlight to thrive, so plots must be somewhat open
to the sky.

Thus the helicopters.

A basic ruse appeared last week in a rural part of west Lauderdale County,
the county in the northwest corner of the state. Someone had grown about six
plants in the middle of several other large plants on a scruffy lot 25 yards
from a house.

Machete in hand, Adkins and some deputies from the county waded into thick
underbrush and through the other plants to cut down the marijuana, one stalk
of which had reached about 8 feet in height. The homeowner said the pot
wasn't on his property and he didn't know anything about it. He wasn't
arrested.

Moments later, the helicopter pilot spotted two other plots of marijuana in
brush another few hundred yards away. There were about 10 plants altogether.

This time, state agents unloaded four-wheelers for a tough trip up a hill
and through prickly bushes.

As the plants came down, deputies loaded them onto the ATVs, making for an
awkward ride back to the truck.

$2,000 per plant:

Adkins said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration puts an average
street value of $2,000 on each plant, no matter the size at the time it's
confiscated. Mobile County contributed 42 plants, worth $84,000, and Baldwin
County 113 plants, worth $226,000, to this year's total.

"I like my job," Adkins said back at the staging area as he waited for
another call to come in from the helicopters. "I'm taking drugs off the
street and cutting into somebody's pocketbook."

The task force can sometimes tell exactly whose pocketbook is hit when they
find someone tending the crops. For the 2003 season, 90 people were arrested
by the task force, including two in Mobile County and nine in Baldwin
County.

Adkins said if his group finds more than 2.2 pounds -- or 1 kilogram -- of
pot, they will charge the person they catch with trafficking. If the amount
falls under that weight, the person will face a
possession-of-a-controlled-substance charge.

A trafficking conviction will bring at least three years in prison and
possibly more, depending on the amount of marijuana discovered. A possession
conviction can bring one to 10 years in prison.

On the recent day in Lauderdale County, the morning's finds were all Adkins
and his crew saw and confiscated. A low sun makes it harder for pilots to
spot marijuana, so Adkins called the search off at 4 p.m.

Adkins explained that the day's haul of 58 pot plants was low for Lauderdale
County, but was expected because cooler weather late in the season forces
growers to harvest their crops. Agents consider the county to be one of the
state's largest marijuana producers, with the task force confiscating about
3,000 plants in early June and another 5,000 plants in mid-August.

Before the officers disbanded for the day, the marijuana plants were placed
in a box and burned in an incinerator.