MARIJUANA WORTH MILLIONS GROWS WILD

Police can't beat weed as one farmer's field grows $4-million worth

It's the multi-million-dollar marijuana field that won't die.

Yesterday, for the fifth year in a row, Surete du Quebec officers chopped
down a wild field of marijuana growing at an undisclosed location on
private land near Papineauville.

In the spring of 1992, unbeknownst to the farmer who owns the property,
somebody planted about 200 high-quality plants in the fertile soil, with
plans of harvesting the drug in the fall and selling it.

But before the culprit or culprits could reap what they had sown, police
raided the plot. While they were pulling out the plants, seeds fell to the
ground, and the next year, when police went to check the field after the
farmer called, they found the plants thriving.

This has happened every year since and, each year, the field gets bigger.
Earlier this week, an officer found 2,025 healthy, high-quality, two-metre
plants growing in the field. Police say if the plants were harvested, and
the drug sold on the street, the marijuana would fetch between $3 million
and $4 million.

"We never found who the original suspect was," says Const. Gilles Couture,
a police spokesman. "But he left behind a big problem for us."

Marijuana usually needs the help of humans to grow to such heights and
quality, but the soil in the area contains just the right nutrients. And
with this year's warm weather, the marijuana was growing as well as
hydroponically-raised plants.

When police arrived at the field, the plants were weighted down with buds
ripe for picking.

Several officers pulled the plants -- roots and all -- out of the field,
and they are now on their way to an undisclosed site to be burned.

The police have asked Quebec's Environment Ministry to figure out how to
stop the field from growing, once and for all.

"We need something that will kill it," Const. Couture says.

The field outside of Papineauville isn't the only wild marijuana problem in
the province. This week, police had to put on their overalls and chop down
a larger field outside of St-Jerome, north of Montreal, and a smaller one
north of Quebec City.

Both of those fields are also the result of raided commercial operations
gone to seed. "We have our hands full with commercial plantations," Const.
Couture says. "Hopefully, we won't be doing this again next year."

Copyright 1998 The Ottawa Citizen