POLICING MARIJUANA IS A CONSTANT, WIDESPREAD FIGHT

Asked to rate marijuana on a scale compared to other drugs, Jack
Killorin turned the question around.

As director of the White House Office of High Intensity Drug Areas in
Atlanta, Killorin has the perspective to ask a better question.

"Which scale are you talking about?" Killorin asked. "On the scale of
criminal productivity, marijuana is king."

A true cash crop.

Caught in the middle are the federal, state and local law enforcement
officers and agencies fighting the Mexican drug cartels, an increasing
number of grow houses and small-time dealers trying to cash in.

"Given the widespread use of marijuana in our society, the drug -- day
in and day out -- generates huge amounts of money," Killorin said.

Sgt. Rick Stinson, a Columbus Police officer who is special agent in
charge of the Metro Narcotics Task Force, said there is a reason large
drug organizations deal in marijuana.

"You don't run some of the risks you run with cocaine," Stinson said.
"They would rather get caught with 500 pounds of marijuana than 5
kilos of cocaine."

The reason?

The punishments are less.

A person caught with the 500 pounds of marijuana faces up to a
mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
The person caught with 400 grams of cocaine faces a minimum of 25
years in prison and $1 million fine.

Cash crop

Columbus is less than 100 miles from Atlanta, one of the nation's
major drug distribution hubs. The drug is being moved by organized
Mexican cartels to Atlanta for distribution up and down the East
Coast, according to local law enforcement agencies.

"Atlanta has moved up to a source city for the eastern side of the
country," Stinson said. "One of the changes we have seen is more drugs
are leaving Atlanta and going into Florida than vice versa." And you
can bet some of those drugs are moving in and out of Columbus,
Killorin said.

"If there is snow on the ground in Columbus -- and there is -- you can
bet there is a blizzard in Atlanta," Killorin said.

The same thing that made Atlanta the business hub of the South has
made it attractive to drug cartels.

"You have to remember Atlanta, and to a certain extent Columbus, we
are a transportation hub," said Lt. Bill Trivelpiece, in charge of the
Atlanta Police Department narcotics unit. "There are numerous
interstates that converge in Atlanta. Our business life in Atlanta
thrives on our transportation network. Unfortunately, the drug
transportation thrives on those same lifelines."

And almost always when drug agents make a large bust, they find
marijuana. On May 4, 2005, local Metro Narcotics Task Force agents
seized more than $37 million worth of drugs and more than $600,000 in
cash as part of a roughly two-year investigation dubbed "Operation
Beallwood Boys." The investigation targeted the Torrance Hill drug
trafficking organization.

Four people from Columbus and one person from East Point, Ga., were
charged as a result of the raids, which took place over an
approximately 42-hour period and included 12 locations.

More than 2,500 pounds of marijuana was found in the area
warehouse.

"One of the trends is major dealers are looking to marijuana as a cash
crop," Stinson said.

'Grow houses'

And the crop has changed over the years. Instead of marijuana plants
growing in fields and forests, a lot of the drug is grown in what are
called "grow houses."

Using sophisticated hydroponic growing methods, the marijuana plants
are grown with soil in rooms that are artificially lit.

Earlier this summer local Metro agents assisted the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation with a marijuana bust in Terrell County.

"This is not a guy putting one plant in his closet with a sun lamp,"
Stinson said. "It was the most sophisticated indoor grow I have ever
seen. There were 100 plants growing together so that it looked like
one big bush."

A number of large grow houses have been raided in the Metro Atlanta
area.

But that does not mean the old way of growing marijuana is
dead.

Lt. Mike Honsinger, with the Athens-Clarke County drug and vice unit,
said law enforcement officers are seeing more outdoor-grown marijuana
in Georgia. That is reversing a 10-year trend, Honsinger said.

"You are seeing it along the I-20 corridor east of Atlanta," Honsinger
said. "There were 7,000 plants found in Warren County, 4,000 plants in
Oglethorpe County, 3,000 plants in Greene County. And that happened in
a two-week period this summer. These were commercial outdoor marijuana
grows. The outdoor grows have been on the decline in the last 10 years."

In Columbus, a number of agencies from the federal to the local level
are working marijuana and other drug cases. In addition to Metro are
the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office Narcotics Unit, the Columbus
Police Vice and Special Operations, Georgia Bureau of Investigation,
Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Alcohol
Tobacco & Firearms and the Fort Benning Suppression team.

"It ranges from street-level operations to affect the users to the
highest levels," Stinson said. "When you work dope, you have to attack
every level. If you don't, you lose a handle on it." And the risks to
law enforcement agents are great, said Trivelpiece.

"Recently, I was on the scene of a homicide where the only drug
discovered was marijuana," Trivelpiece said. "It is still an illegal
drug and dealing it is risky business."