U.S. POLICY WEEDS OUT POT CULTURE

YORKE MOUNTAIN, St. Vincent -- As they tended their little plots in
the marijuana fields that blanket the mountainside in full view of
this nation's capital, Tornado, Moon and Stump-i lamented their
miserable Christmas.

First came the Colombians, dumping huge quantities of marijuana at
deflated prices throughout the region in a bid to take control of the
Caribbean marijuana market.

Then the U.S. Marines landed.

Three Marine combat helicopters packed with Caribbean troops, U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents and St. Vincentian police
descended on marijuana fields in this remote southeastern corner of
the Caribbean just before Christmas.

During a weeklong operation dubbed Weedeater, they slashed and burned
more than 5 million marijuana plants, seven tons of cured pot and 250
drying huts, arresting 13 farmers and killing one. All this on a small
island that per capita is one of the world's largest producers of the
drug.

"This thing is way overbearing, man," said Stump-i, a
fisherman-turned-farmer whose 300-pound harvest went up in smoke. As
he spoke, he tended a new crop that will be market-ready in April.

Tornado, whose adjacent plot overlooking Kingstown survived, said, "If
the Americans destroy all the marijuana in St. Vincent, they'll
destroy St. Vincent. It's the backbone of the economy. It's our
livelihood. Now that the Americans have killed us on bananas, we have
no other choice."

Welcome to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a nation of 32 islands and
about 120,000 people where, according to anthropologists, sociologists
and counternarcotics agents, ganja quietly rules.

By their estimates, illegal marijuana sales and exports account for
close to a fifth of St. Vincent's gross domestic product; as many as a
fifth of adults smoke it regularly; and local politicians and business
leaders privately concede that the drug is the driving force in the
island's economy -- even bigger than its traditional banana crop,
which has fallen victim to U.S. trade policy.

Most island business people attributed slumping Christmas-season sales
of all goods to incomes lost due to the U.S.-led eradication
operation. The net effect: Weedeater has inflamed anti-American
sentiment and rekindled a movement to decriminalize the drug here,
even as it failed to destroy the bulk of the crop.

"We didn't touch nearly a tenth of what's up there," said one of the
eight DEA agents who joined in the week of hacking and burning --
though the local police commissioner insists that as much as half the
crop was destroyed.

"There's just so much of it," said the DEA agent. "To make a
significant dent, it's something that would have to be done on a much
more regular basis."

The State Department concedes that little of St. Vincent's marijuana
ends up in the United States. Most is sold along a wide swath of the
Caribbean, from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Aruba.

So why bother? A U.S. official who asked not to be identified
explained that the annual Operation Weedeater is "basically a training
mission for the U.S. Marines" and the Barbados-based Regional Security
Service, an anti-drug unit staffed by Caribbean nations.

Besides, the official said, they were invited.

Ganja may rule here, but local political leaders assert that it does
not govern. This nation, in fact, is far better known for the largely
ganja-free Grenadines, an island chain of white-sand beaches where
Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger has a winter retreat, the world's
rich and famous berth multimillion-dollar yachts and Prime Minister
James F. Mitchell lives.

For Mitchell, the "weedeating" exercise, financed each year by U.S.
taxpayers, is a show of strength, a reminder that politicians are more
powerful than planters and that his is a responsible and peace-loving
country.

Despite marijuana's economic dominance, St. Vincent has seen little of
the soaring crime and violence that is mushrooming in the Caribbean
largely as a result of the region's role as a conduit for Colombian
cocaine en route to the United States and Europe.

"The ganja industry here has not been accompanied by much violence,"
said Ralph Gonsalves, a lawyer and member of parliament who heads the
political opposition. "You've had instances where people will fight
over a particular marijuana crop, but you also have violent land
disputes over other crops.