THIS GRASS IS GREENER FROM HIGH IN AIR

State Police fly over farm fields in search of clandestine plots of
cultivated marijuana.

Lafayette, Ind. -- Hovering hundreds of feet above a 50-acre cornfield,
State Police helicopter pilot Sgt. Don Dombroski kept an eye peeled for
emerald green patches of marijuana growing amid the dark green corn plants.

As summer wanes, State Police are again scouring Indiana's farm land for the
small, round clearings where marijuana plants are illegally cultivated.

Though spotting the plants amid acres of 8-foot-tall corn is nearly
impossible from the ground, the job from the air is much easier.

"It's kind of a bright emerald green that we look for," Dombroski, a veteran
of Indiana's annual war against marijuana growers said Wednesday.

>From his helicopter, Dombroski radioed the illegal crop's position to
officers on the ground. They pulled up 76 marijuana plants during the day's
two raids near the small eastern Tippecanoe County community of Pettit. No
one was arrested.

The raids were the latest in a series of marijuana search-and-destroy
missions orchestrated by State Police during the past few weeks.

During Wednesday's searches, Indiana Conservation Officer Ed Houston and
State Trooper Ed Chapman wielded machetes to help them chop down any big
plants they came across. Though the plants were small enough to pull up by
hand, Houston said he needed a machete during a recent raid in Carroll
County that netted 7-and 8-foot-tall pot plants.

In Wednesday's raids, the plants were planted in rows about 10 feet apart
where someone had cut away some cornstalks. One plant was planted in each
clearing, but because of the tall grass and weeds that filled gaps, immature
marijuana plants were sometimes difficult to spot from the ground.

"He spotted this one -- can you believe that?" said Chapman, referring to
Dombroski and holding up a marijuana plant no more than 2 feet tall and
surrounded by 4-foot-tall weeds.

At the first raid site, officers pulled up 36 plants and drained 7 plastic
milk containers filled with what appeared to be water and fertilizer used to
pamper the plants.

The harvested plants would be taken to the State Police post in West
Lafayette, where samples would be taken for a Mississippi laboratory
conducting research into marijuana's potency. The rest would be burned that
same afternoon.

At the second raid site, the resident of a nearby farmhouse whose driveway
provided the only access to the pot-filled cornfield was surprised to see an
entourage of police vehicles arrive while the chopper circled overhead.

Two officers stopped to talk to him while the officers harvested the 40
plants. The resident agreed to let police do a cursory search of his house
and outbuilding for any evidence that he was the cultivator. They found
nothing incriminating.

Chapman said it's unusual for police to make arrests during such eradication
exercises.

"But at least we're ruining someone's Christmas," he said.

Checked-by: Don Beck