GOING TO POT: WEED MAKING COMEBACK

Marijuana Growing On Rise In Va.

ROANOKE -- Some speak about the moonshining that goes on in the western
hills of Virginia as if the illicit trade defines the state's lawless
spirit; but bootleg whiskey is only half the story. The other half is
marijuana.

In Virginia's cornfields, in roadside ditches, greenhouses and national
forests, on back porches and mountain slopes, alongside railroad tracks,
beneath power lines and around the muddy banks of swimming holes, marijuana
plants are growing tall and in abundance.

More than ever, law enforcement officials say, pot growers are staking
their claim to the commonwealth's fertile soil. But they're becoming as
wily as the secretive moonshiners: Police say the trend over the past few
years is for professional pot growers to spread their lucrative crop out
over many plots, reducing the chances that agents will find and seize all
their plants. Consequently, while arrests are up, seizures are down.

"You used to have large plots with 2,000, with 3,000, or with 6,000 plants,
and commercial airliners could look down and see them from 20,000 feet,"
said state police 1st Sgt. J.C. Lewis, statewide coordinator for marijuana
eradication. "Now, instead of putting all their eggs in one basket, they
may have five or six plots with 100 or 200 plants each."

Agents are also turning up more small operations where growers lavish their
attention on no more than 20 plants, said state police Lt. Mark Petska,
deputy assistant director of the Drug Enforcement Division.

Baby boomers who learned to roll joints and toke on bongs in the tie-dyed
'60s are beginning to grow their own, keeping some for themselves and
selling the rest to an intimate circle of friends, Petska theorized.

Marijuana use among teen-agers, meanwhile, is up from a decade ago,
according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

It all adds up to one thing, say proponents of legalizing marijuana: Time
for the law to cry uncle. Despite the millions of dollars spent to stamp
out Virginia's massive marijuana crop, they say, the legions of pot smokers
and growers have been undeterred, and as things now stand, the "war"
against this particular drug is a quagmire of wasted resources.

"You can only fail so much before people start questioning the public
policy, and the policy is a failure," said Lennice Werth, a Crewe resident
and head of Virginians Against Drug Violence. "And it's not even a policy,
it's a crusade. We're against prohibition because the prohibition of drugs
is what causes drug-related violence."

A House of Representatives subcommittee recently turned back various
drug-legalization proposals. Werth conceded that Virginia's General
Assembly will likely be as unreceptive to any legalization plans.

"Legislators are followers, not leaders," she said, "so it's up to the
public to lead on this."

Though Virginia law enforcement officials claim to arrest more pot growers
per capita than most other states, it's tough to make a dent in the
unlawful trade because the Old Dominion is such a large producer. The state
agriculture department keeps no statistics on marijuana, but the
Washington-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
estimates that marijuana is the commonwealth's largest cash crop,
surpassing even tobacco.

Saying that its numbers are conservative and based on DEA's eradication
data, NORML estimates that Virginia pot growers in 1997 harvested more than
121,600 plants worth $197 million. Nationwide, pot wholesale revenues
ranged between $15.1 billion and $26.3 billion.

Lewis, the state police marijuana eradication coordinator, said he couldn't
begin to estimate the value of Virginia's crop.

"It's grown throughout the whole state, in back yards, in gardens, on
mountain tops," Lewis said. "It's everywhere."

No more so than in western Virginia, which has two contraband capitals,
according to Petska. If Rocky Mount is the center of the state's
moonshining trade, he said, then Roanoke is the heart of pot country. The
Allegheny highlands north of the city feature vast forests and hidden
hollows that make it difficult for agents to spot marijuana fields. The
rugged terrain south and west of Roanoke is largely rural and ideal for pot
growers looking to stay out of sight.

And where once the area around Wytheville was the site of some of the most
high-intensity pot farming, Petska said, the illicit agriculture in recent
years has spread east, to Pulaski, Floyd, Franklin and Henry counties,
where rural landscapes and woodlands abound.

"Unlike Norfolk, for instance, you don't have houses on top of each other
and large subdivisions," Lewis said. "In Roanoke and Salem, or around
there, you can throw marijuana out on your front lawn and there's a good
chance nobody would see it."

Using up to $200,000 a year in federal money since 1983, state police every
summer embark on missions to destroy pot plants. They use state helicopters
and small spotter planes to find pot fields, visible from the air because
of their unique blue-green tint. They also assist local sheriff's
departments in staking out fields, waiting for growers to show up to tend
their plants.

Last year state police seized 15,051 plants from 409 outdoor plots and 34
indoor groves. They made 165 arrests on manufacturing marijuana charges.
Reflecting growers' increasing use of smaller plots, the number of plants
seized is down from earlier in the decade. In 1994, for instance, police
destroyed 39,338 plants, and the year before that they destroyed 25,672.

NORML estimates that state police are finding only 15 percent of the pot
being grown throughout Virginia.

But the true measure of the eradication effort's success, Petska said, is
the number of arrests, which has escalated dramatically in the past half
decade.

"There used to be about 40 to 50 arrests per year," he said. "We've more
than tripled that. Arresting growers is more important than seizing plants.
My theory is, if you grow 1,000 pot plants year after year after year, and
I go out and arrest you, you're not going to grow 1,000 plants anymore."

Growing marijuana is a felony in Virginia, punishable by up to 30 years in
prison and a $10,000 fine. Last year, according to state police statistics,
marijuana accounted for 16,391, or 54 percent, of the 30,348 drug arrests
statewide. Of the marijuana arrests, 14,284 were for alleged possession,
2,107 were for the alleged manufacture or sale.

To groups like NORML and Virginians Against Drug Violence, such statistics
are evidence that the state needs to rethink its fight against marijuana.
Its use is widespread throughout the state and, indeed, a part of the
culture, they argue. People of all walks of life and ages smoke it, and
many country stores acknowledge its popularity by selling rolling papers,
along with belt buckles and bandannas with pot-leaf motifs.

Sending peaceful pot growers into prisons with violent criminals is part of
the dark undertow of the state's drug policy, said Mike Krawitz, president
of Virginia Tech's NORML chapter. Like many pot proponents, Krawitz said
alcohol, while legal, is a far worse societal problem than legalized
marijuana could ever be.

"We don't take and vilify someone who comes home from work and has a
martini," Krawitz said. "We've all heard of what can happen at parties
where there's alcohol. If you go to a party where there's pot around, the
worst thing you're going to find is loud music."

The case of Stephen Merrill illustrates how the campaign against marijuana
can damage an otherwise exemplary life. Merrill, a lawyer in Norfolk and
head of the local Libertarian Party, was arrested July 7 on his farm in
Isle of Wight County, where authorities say they found 180 pot plants.

"I'm the most humiliated lawyer in Virginia," said Merrill, 44, and a
lawyer for 17 years.

Authorities have charged Merrill with growing marijuana not intended for
his own personal use, an allegation he denies. Yes, he said, he was growing
marijuana, but not for others.

Though he wouldn't discuss his views on the state's marijuana laws while
his case is pending, he did reiterate that he is a member of the
Libertarian Party, which favors the legalization of pot.

"I'm no hypocrite, I'm no right-winger who goes to church and preaches
against drugs and then gets caught growing marijuana," he said. "It's been
a tremendous humiliation, but I'm determined to retain my integrity even
though I've been caught in this embarrassing situation, doing something
privately, on my own land.

"The government over-reaches into every aspect of our lives."

According to DEA literature, marijuana "may play a role" in some forms of
cancer and respiratory and reproductive problems. The DEA also cites
studies linking the use of large amounts of marijuana to problems with
memory, attention span and learning ability.

Proponents of legalizing pot, however, point to studies that suggest even
long-term use of the drug creates no ill health effects.

Stan Kennedy, the DEA special agent based in Roanoke, disagreed with those
who hold pot harmless. "Ask yourself, do you want to be driving down the
road while the guy in the oncoming lane is high on marijuana? Those who
tend to use marijuana are poorly educated about it. There's a lot of
education that needs to be done."

For his part, Lewis said he is content to fight to eradicate marijuana
because the law is the law, and the law makes the drug illegal. Still, he
said, it's an uphill battle and the hill is getting steeper.

"Marijuana is coming back -- the use of it, the sale of it, the manufacture
of it," he said. "We're seeing an increase in everything."