POT GOES UP IN SMOKE

Kids Hop Fences In Fields, Tip Drug Squad To `Jackpot'

The law enforcement officials who seek and destroy marijuana that is growing
wild in Dakota County and other Minnesota hemp harbors call their 4-year-old
endeavor ``Operation Emerald Harvest.''

It could have been dubbed ``Cheech and Chong's Worst Nightmare.'' (Their
movie plots all centered on the marijuana culture).

As a dozen members of the National Guard chopped and burned 35,000 stalks of
marijuana on a private pasture south of Hastings on Monday, several cars
inched past with drivers craning their necks for a glimpse. Members of the
county's Drug Task Force believe at least some of the drivers were the same
teen-agers who attracted police attention to the field by hopping the
barbed-wire fence to gather the pot plants for sale or personal use. Each
plant yields about a pound of marijuana, which has a street value of $500 to
$800, depending on the quality of the crop. By the time the last of the
county's 15 major fields is ``whacked and stacked,'' police estimate that
$125 million worth of marijuana will have gone, well, up in smoke.

``We're breaking some hearts today,'' a National Guard staff sergeant said
with a chuckle, watching an Oldsmobile idle by for a third time.

The National Guard provides Operation Emerald Harvest with machete-wielding
workers while sheriff's deputies stand watch over the fields in case the
crew runs into some peeved pot farmers among the 8-foot-high plants.

Such surprises aren't rare. During a Lakeville clearing, officers stopped a
man driving away from the field in a car so packed with marijuana he barely
had room to drive, said Sgt. Mike Scott of the task force.

In other incidents, officers in helicopters chased three men through a patch
for several hours in a state park north of Winona, and workers have come
across pitchforks and other booby traps around prized plants in Lincoln
County.

The National Guard volunteers for Operation Emerald Harvest are not allowed
to drive their own cars to the fields or to identify themselves because of
the risk associated with their work. On the van ride to the site south of
Hastings, several pointed out roadside pot plants and discussed the local
crop, some of which has been tended while the rest simply grows wild.

``Some of it is pretty high quality,'' one Guardsman said.

``And how do you know that?'' asked another.

``That's classified,'' a Guardsman in the middle said with a grin.

Despite the teasing, the work is not easy. Marijuana is a hardy plant that
can grow on rough terrain and special weed-whackers are sometimes used for
particularly stubborn stalks.

While critics might argue that the money and time spent on marijuana
eradication would be better used to fight harder drugs, narcotics officers
defend the program by saying the National Guard's help cuts down on the
number of armed officers responding to neighbors' complaints about the wild
fields.

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, also a partner in the operation, sends
samples from local fields to a Mississippi lab that tracks the level of the
high-inducing chemical THC in regional crops.

``Marijuana is usually a gateway drug,'' said Maj. Terry Sieben, a
counter-drug coordinator for the National Guard. ``(And) a lot of this isn't
your father's marijuana anymore. Nowadays, the THC level has increased so
much that even the weakest marijuana is a lot stronger than the old stuff
ever was.''

As the soldiers burned the first 3,000 plants, 63-year-old Charlotte Wohlers
watched with interest as the smoke billowed up from the 5-acre pasture where
her husband's cows graze. Wohlers shook her head, saying she had no idea
other residents were trespassing to help themselves to a bright-green,
illegal forest. Then she caught a whiff of the fire below.

``Oh, my gosh,'' she said. ``Our neighbors are going to wonder what's going
on.''