POT PATROL: RURAL WAR ON DRUGS

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

But few growers could match the ingeniousness of the grower who 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 - 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.

Kentucky State Police are launching another season of search-and-destroy
missions against the marijuana patches hidden across the mountains, often
on public lands.

As one of the country's largest marijuana-producing states, Kentucky has
become a battleground in the nation's "war on drugs." Here in the
mountains, it's the growers versus 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 don't want to go out there
because they're afraid of being shot or hurt."

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," Lawson
said. "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 this 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.

Nearby, Trooper Randy McCarty pointed at an empty can of gold spray paint.

"That was probably theirs," he said, referring to the people who planted
the marijuana.

"They were probably huffing paint. For some reason, huffers like to use
gold spray paint."

To follow these Strike Force members for even a few minutes through this
solid forest growth is to wonder how even a single plant is ever
eradicated. The sheer physical exertion of getting to the patches is
overwhelming. Yet it is only a single element of the job.

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 it's 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 doesn't 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.

Other times, growers are turned in by angry associates, scorned lovers or
suspicious neighbor s. In fact, community members' increasing willingness
to inform police of illegal or suspicious activity may be, according to
Strike Force members, indicative of a growing intolerance for the illicit
trade.

"The attitudes are different from the public now," said state police Sgt.
Charles Cornett, a Strike Force member.

"I think some people in the Eastern Kentucky counties thought, if we treat
them bad, they won't come back. Well, here it is the 10th season, and we're
still coming back. In fact, mos t people say now they wish that we would
get all of it.

"The violence, the public corruption and all that - people don't want to
live in that kind of atmosphere."

[SIDEBAR]

Pot In The U.S.

About half of the marijuana consumed in the U.S. is grown domestically,
federal officials estimate, with 90 percent of the U.S. production coming
from Kentucky, California, Hawaii, Tennessee and New York.

Last year, the government announced that marijuana use was on the rise
among teen-agers after a steady decline.

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse estimated that 7.3 percent of
all teen-agers - 1.3 million between age 12 and 17 - smoked marijuana in
1997, compared with 4 percent in 1995.