POLICE DEPARTMENTS TAKE WAR ON DRUGS OUT INTO THE FIELD

IONIA -- Undercover narcotics officers and state police troopers created a
wake as they pushed single-file between rows of 8-foot corn stalks
Wednesday. Ears of corn thumped against their arms and chests.

"Stay together, guys," an officer yelled before disappearing as thick corn
stalks snapped back into place behind him.

A state police helicopter chopped the air several hundred feet above.

"Go to the 12," an officer in the Bell JetRanger helicopter said over a
hand-held radio to the ground crew in the field. In police talk, "the 12"
is straight-up north.

"To the east," he said, trying to make it easier for the search party to
find its way. Even cops don't have a sense of direction in cornfields. "To
your left. No, your other left."

Through this maze of maize, the officers finally reached their prize -- a
skinny, 6-foot tall marijuana plant growing in a gap between several rows
of corn. "There's another pocket to the west of ya'," the officer said from
above.

A few rows away, they found another, then another. One 9-foot plant reached
for the sun above the corn tops.

On Wednesday, the war on drugs was fought in this cornfield near Grand
River Trail and Knox Road, southeast of Ionia.

For police, it was a minor victory. They harvested 19 plants near this
crossroads. Each plant would have been worth about $1,000 if allowed to
mature, they said.

From there, they moved to other fields and ditches in Ionia County, part
of Operation HEMP.

The officers seized only 39 plants, a disappointing day for police.

In a cornfield near Clinton Trail and Tasker Road in Odessa Township,
officers found eight plants that had been tied down to make them more
difficult to find.

They stuffed the plants into brown paper evidence bags, loaded them into
the back of a van and planned to burn them eventually, they said.

"These are cultivated," said Sgt. Don Wittkopp, as he yanked three short
but bushy plants from along a ditch. "These aren't ditch-weed. See the
fertilizer? These are nice plants."

Even police cannot gauge how much these weed-whacking exercises help in the
drug war.

Police on Wednesday didn't make any arrests. They said it's difficult to
prove who was growing the pot without actually catching somebody tending to
it. Growers usually plant it there without asking farmers for permission,
police said.

It's unclear how much it cost to run Wednesday's search. It costs the state
police $337 per hour to operate the chopper, including the salary of the
pilot. A dozen officers also worked on the operation.

Before Wednesday's day-long search, Operation HEMP officers this year had
seized more than 30,000 marijuana plants growing outside in Michigan and
4,700 growing inside homes, sheds and barns.

State police said they hadn't counted up the final seizure totals for Kent,
Ottawa and surrounding counties.

By the end of the harvest season, they expect to reach last year's
statewide totals -- 51,700 plants from fields, woods and along streams, and
nearly 6,000 from indoors, they said.

Last year's numbers were higher than the previous two years combined.
They've also made 113 arrests so far this year, down from 222 last year.

"We're trying to keep the dope off the streets," said Wittkopp, an
undercover officer from the Montcalm County Sheriff's Department who wore a
yellow bandanna on his head and camouflage pants. "We'll get some
ditch-weed (which grows wild), but most of it is cultivated. If we don't
eradicate it, it's going to find its way to the streets."

State police Lt. Patrick Herblet, commander of the Central Michigan
Enforcement Team (CMET), said Wednesday's lean harvest could mean that
growers have moved their operations inside.

"In our four counties the last four years, we haven't found as much as in
the past," Herblet said. "I don't think it's stopping them. They're just
coming up with different ways of doing it."

Wednesday's raids were led by members of CMET, which includes state police
troopers and officers from sheriff's departments in Ionia, Montcalm and
Newaygo counties and police departments in Ionia and Big Rapids. The team
also covers Mecosta County.

"Let's gather up over here so we can find out where we're going," said an
officer, laying out a map on the hood of a Jeep Cherokee parked behind the
state police post in Ionia.

He pointed out more than 30 sites on a county map, each highlighted in
yellow and assigned a number. In most cases, police had received tips that
marijuana was growing there.

"That one here, there's nothing positive," the officer said, pointing to a
yellow spot on the map south of Ionia. "But there's a doper who lives right
here. He probably grows it for his own use."

They later found nothing there.