LAWMEN LOCATE POT HARVESTING FROM THE AIR

Law officers have seized marijuana plants by the hundreds in recent
weeks, from sophisticated indoor growing operations to massive outdoor
farms tended by growers who work for Mexican cartels.

In west Tulsa County, deputies even found it growing in
trees.

It's the time of year that pot busts abound, the harvest season for
outdoor growing, said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.

"This is the time of year that the plants are so large they are easier
to see from the air," Woodward said, referring to the bureau's efforts
to spot pot patches from planes.

"Also, we will see the growers out in the fields as they are trying to
harvest the plants this time of year."

The growing season starts in April or May, and the harvesting season
begins in August or September and continues until the first freeze.

On Sept. 8, the Tulsa County Drug Task Force found an elaborate
operation where marijuana plants were growing in 5-gallon buckets that
had been placed in milk crates and suspended in trees. Hoses were run
to the buckets, and the grower used a pressurized container similar to
a fire hydrant to water the plants.

Tulsa police broke up a large indoor marijuana-growing operation Sept.
10, seizing drugs with a street value of about $300,000 to $400,000,
and a Broken Arrow man was arrested after more than 400 marijuana
plants were seized.

In mid-September, authorities in Cherokee County seized more than
1,000 pounds of marijuana after receiving a tip that it was being
transported through the area. They found dozens of bundles of
marijuana with an estimated value of $1.6 million in a recreational
vehicle.

Most noteworthy is a new trend in the last two years of Mexican
cartels bringing illegal immigrants here to grow and harvest large
commercial pot farms in rural locations, Woodward said.

It's an alternative they've found to bringing large amounts of
marijuana across the border, he said.

"The cartels will dump them in these patches and force them to live
there," Woodward said of the immigrants.

"They will literally be living there from about April until it is
harvested. They are out in the heat and the bugs. It is miserable."

Authorities have found tents, cooking equipment and other living
necessities near the patches of plants. Law officers in north Texas
have been reporting the same trend.

State agents have found six cartel crops in Oklahoma within the last
two years, Woodward said. Such large-scale operations have the
potential to increase significantly the number of marijuana plants
seized in the state.

Statistics from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs
Control show that the number of plants seized by drug agents spiked
from 21,768 in 2008 to 65,444 in 2009.

The dramatic increase was largely because of the discovery of a large
cartel crop.

Last summer, agents found a huge patch of about 32,000 plants near the
Kiamichi mountains, Woodward said.

"That is why we have got to continue to shut these guys down and be
real aggressive in what we do," he said. "That is the message that we
want to send."

So far this summer, state drug agents have seized about 20,000
cultivated plants and arrested about a dozen people, while many other
arrests are pending.

Today's numbers are small compared with 20 years ago, when agents
would seize about 200,000 plants and make about 50 arrests during a
growing season. Woodward said aerial marijuana-spotting efforts make a
significant dent in marijuana production.

"We hit these areas hard every summer to put a lot of commercial
growers in jail. As a result of putting the pressure on, they have not
been coming back like before," he said.

In contrast to the outdoor patches that state agents find during
aerial searches, Tulsa police and the Tulsa County Drug Task Force
tend to find more indoor hydroponic-growing operations than outdoor
plants.

"Meth occupies a lot of their time," Tulsa County Sheriff's Capt. John
Bowman said of the task force.

"We put an emphasis on it because of its effect on society in
general."