MARIJUANA STRIKE FORCE MUST BATTLE BOOBY TRAPS

LONDON, Ky. - Kentucky, one of the country's largest
marijuana-producing states, has become a battleground in the nation's
"war on drugs," with growers defending their crops with everything
from steel spikes to copperhead snakes.

In the mountains, it's the growers against the Kentucky Marijuana
Strike Force, a multi-agency team with members from the state police,
the National Guard, the Civil Air Patrol and the U.S. Forest Service.

"This is the rural version of the inner-city drug scene," said a state
police officer.

"Drive-by shootings on those streets can be just as random as the
traps out here on public lands. ... We have farmers call us because
they think they've got pot out on their land, but they don92t want to
go out there because they're afraid of being shot or hurt."

Recently, concealed bamboo stakes surrounded one pot crop. A board
full of steel spikes capable of piercing a pair of hard-soled boots
protected another.

One grower used copperhead snakes enclosed in concealed mesh to stand
guard over his plants. The mesh was rigged in such a way that it would
be sliced open -- and the snakes set free 97 should anyone attempt to
harvest the marijuana.

When state troopers found the illegal patch in the eastern Kentucky
mountains and tried to cut it down, they released the venomous
sentries. One trooper was bitten and nearly lost his hand from the
poison.

Often the illegal patches are in some of the Appalachian hills' more
remote parts, concealed by thick woods and away from roads. At this
time of year in eastern Kentucky, the helicopter is the drug fighter's
best friend, enabling Strike Force spotters to survey large areas,
then drop in by rappelling from the helicopters.

"I wonder sometimes how people get out there to plant this stuff,"
said Lt. Shelby Lawson, marijuana suppression coordinator for the
Kentucky State Police. "I mean, we have to rappel people into a lot of
these plots. There's not a road or a trail or anything to get to them."

In the last few years, marijuana growth and eradication has been made
even more difficult by a new factor: The growers are starting to
spread out their assets in order to protect their investments. Instead
of one patch of 60 plants, a grower today may spread 10 plots of six
plants across the side of one densely forested hill. This sprinkling
of seeds creates a crop that's harder to see from the air and harder
to find on the ground.

With their helicopter grounded because of foul weather one day last
week, troopers on foot slashed through a Laurel County hillside
covered with weeds, berry vines and brush.

"Here's some here -- now, this is pretty tall for this time of year,"
said Trooper Kevin Minor.

The Kentucky Marijuana Strike Force, begun in 1990, has four full-time
members, working leads and managing the program year-round. But in the
summer, as the illegal crop flourishes, a small army of trained
experts in various fields converges on a tiny cinderblock building in
London for long days in the air and across the mountains and forests
of southeastern Kentucky. As many as 150 people from the participating
agencies are assigned to the Strike Force at peak times.

All around the building, dark-green Army helicopters and Humvees stand
at the ready. Dozens of combat fatigue-clad National Guardsmen,
gray-suited state troopers and volunteer Civil Air Patrol members work
and talk and wait.

Inside the building, maps of every size and variety line walls and
fill cases. Sometimes informants, obvious by their dress, come and
go.

Everyone has a specific role here, including helicopter pilots and
spotters, who find the weed from the air.

"Some people just have a knack for seeing it," Lawson
said.

"They can see what you don't see. It may be that it92s a different
shade than the surrounding growth, or that the serration of the leaves
makes it look fuzzy from the air. I liken it to other police work,
really. You just look for the thing that doesn't belong there."

Finding the weed that doesn't belong doesn92t often lead to the person
who illegally planted it. The pot tends to be planted by trespassers,
not by landowners, and in many instances on public lands. Planting on
public land, though, can result in federal charges in federal court,
where penalties are more severe. So some growers are retreating to
solely private property.

Sometimes, Lawson said, the booby traps can provide tips about the
grower. If the traps included blasting materials, for example, police
might be able to trace the buyer of the explosives involved.