DROUGHT MAKES POT VISIBLE FROM ON HIGH

The drought that's aggravating home gardeners, pool owners and golf
course caretakers has been a boon to at least one group: police
officers who hunt out marijuana plants.

With the shrubs and underbrush that generally conceal marijuana
turning brown in the sweltering heat, especially in Maryland,
carefully tended 96 and religiously watered 96 pot plants are sticking
out like very sore, very green thumbs, law enforcement officials say.

Police in Maryland and Virginia regularly embark on airplane flights
over private property and public parks in search of illicitly grown
marijuana. Sgt. Kirk Holub, head of the Montgomery County Police
Department's narcotics division, said that from above, the "emerald
green" of marijuana stands out in a field turned barren from lack of
rain.

"It's made it easier to identify the crops. It's just a lot harder to
find cover," Holub said. This week alone, officials in Maryland have
seized more than 100 marijuana plants. Arrests have nearly doubled,
from 54 last year to about 100 so far this year.

So far this year, about 2,500 marijuana plants have been found in
Maryland, up from 2,200 96 or $4 million worth 96 at this time last year.

In Virginia, which hasn't suffered the same rainfall deficits this
summer as Maryland, officials have seized more than 7,500 plants,
compared with about 10,000 seized in the same period last year, said
First Sgt. J.C. Lewis, head of the Virginia State Police Marijuana
Eradication Program.

The problem for marijuana farmers has to do with the stubby root
structure of their chosen crop. The University of Mississippi's
Mamhoud Elsohly, who researches marijuana for the National Institute
on Drug Abuse, the nation's only legal provider of marijuana for
research, said cannabis roots extend a scant six inches into the
ground, unlike the roots of, say, cotton plants, which grow far deeper
and require less water.

"In order to survive, [marijuana plants] need to be attended to. And
if they're attended to, they'll be more visible," Elsohly said.

The problem has attracted the attention of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation, a Washington-based
pot-advocacy group. Marijuana growers "know if they go out and water
the crops, it'll draw attention," said Allen St. Pierre, the group's
executive director, who added that several pot farmers have told him
that they are "definitely concerned about their outdoor crops."

Narcotics detectives, meanwhile, say the dilemma has forced some
creative solutions. Some marijuana growers have moved their crops
indoors. Others have resorted to growing the plants in pots put on the
limbs of trees.

"They're using different tactics . . . [and] are more discreet in
their growing habits," said Sgt. Harry L. McDaniel, head of the
Maryland State Police Marijuana Eradication Unit.

While marijuana plants grown indoors are often far smaller than their
counterparts, the yield is more potent and thus potentially more
profitable, Montgomery County's Holub said.

Besides being hidden from the eyes of airborne officers, marijuana
cultivated indoors can be grown under a more controlled climate, said
Stephen D'Ovidio, a Montgomery narcotics detective. What's more, he
said, indoor farmers generally don't have to worry about neighbors
stealing their plants or animals eating them.

As for those plants toughing it out outdoors under the summer sun,
police say the word on the street is that they hardly carry the punch
of the crops grown just months ago. "It's not good. It's not good
weed," Montgomery County narcotics detectives said an informant told
them recently.