MORE MARIJUANA BEING FOUND, OFFICIALS SAY

PITTSBORO -- When law enforcement officials seized 23,000 marijuana plants
in Chatham County last month, they destroyed the largest North Carolina
crop anyone can remember.

But that doesn't mean Chatham is a hotbed for cannabis growth, nor does it
mean the state, ranked seventh nationally in 2000 for marijuana growth, has
more marijuana than before. Recent spikes in marijuana eradication may be
the result of stronger searches, better police cooperation, or even luck.

"I think we're finding a higher percentage of dope in our state," said
Special Agent Billy Denney of the Drug Enforcement Agency in Greensboro.
"We like to think it's because we've revamped the program. We have really
pulled a lot of agencies together under the SBI."

Marijuana is grown in North Carolina from the Appalachians to the Atlantic.
In Chatham, officials seized the county's largest crop July 13 just south
of Carolina Hill Road, shocking landowners who say they wouldn't recognize
the plant if they saw it.

So far this year, Chatham deputies have destroyed more than 26,000 plants
- -- an unusually high number, Sheriff Ike Gray said. Last year, Wilkes
County led the state with 10,291 plants seized.

Each year, the DEA supports marijuana eradication by giving the State
Bureau of Investigation a grant for aerial searches. The money is allocated
to the state Highway Patrol and individual counties to pay for airplane and
helicopter fuel, machetes, boots and safety equipment.

The fact that Chatham County has so much marijuana growth this year has
little to do with the soil, Denney said. Many growers, it seems, move from
county to county -- even from state to state -- to avoid losing their crops
and getting caught.

It is difficult to predict how much marijuana is growing in a county in any
given year. "One year you might get three plants -- that's it," Denney
said. "And the next year you might get 20,000. These guys move around."

And whether a sheriff's department finds marijuana depends at least a
little bit on luck.

"You've got to be looking at the right place at the right time," Denney
said. "We hit all 100 counties. These people, they'll grow in their back
yard, and they'll go miles and miles and grow. It's a shot in the dark
every year."

In Madison County, which ranked second in the state last year with 3,939
plants seized, deputies might fly 14 to 15 days during the growth season
from April to October, Deputy Billy Osteen said.

Before they fly over to see it, deputies usually know about a marijuana
patch from a citizen who has reported suspicious activity.

In counties such as Wilkes, Madison, Warren and Chatham -- the top four
marijuana-producing counties in 2000, in that order -- the rural land
appeals to growers, Osteen said. It is impossible for a handful of deputies
to canvass the entire county.

"It's hard to get out and actually look all the time," Osteen said.

When Madison deputies locate marijuana, they sometimes have to drive high
into the Appalachians, strap on backpacks and machetes, and hike several
miles to the site, which might be a tiny crop terraced into a steep
mountainside.

In such rural areas, the odds of catching the crook are remote because,
most likely, the grower doesn't own the land.

"Why grow it on your land?" Osteen said. "If you catch their crop, all they
lose is the crop. They don't get caught, and they don't get their land seized."

The people who own land south of Carolina Hill Road use it for timber. Only
one of those five landowners resides in Chatham County, and she lives more
than 10 miles away.

Harry Isley, who lives in Asheboro, owns 91 acres in that area. Like the
other landowners, he visits his parcel every now and then.

"It grows good trees, and we try to keep it doing that," said Isley, who
shares the land with his brother. "It's just timberland to us."

When law enforcement agencies chopped down the plants near his land, Isley
read about it in the (Greensboro) News & Record.

"To tell you the darn truth," Isley said, "I wouldn't even know what
marijuana looks like growing out in the field."