LAWS WON'T AFFECT SEARCHES FOR ILLEGAL POT PLANTS

When undercover officers from the Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team
perform their annual sweep for marijuana plants this year, it will be
business as usual.

Michigan's medical marijuana law will have no affect on Operation Help
Eliminate Marijuana Plants, a yearly search by ground and air for
illegal plants, BAYANET Lt. Mark Uribe said.

Operation HEMP is done during the growing season, and officers in
years past have pulled hundreds of the plants in Clare and Isabella
counties.

Because the medical marijuana law requires patients and caregivers to
keep plants grown outdoors under lock and key, officers searching for
illegally grown marijuana will be able to distinguish between the two,
Uribe said.

"We will do the same as always as far as enforcing law in Michigan,"
Uribe said.

Medical marijuana patients are allowed to grow 12 plants by state
law.

Caregivers are allowed to grow 12 plants each for up to five patients,
Uribe said.

Undercover officers have come across marijuana being grown by patients
and caregivers in the past, Uribe said.

As long as they are growing the plant either inside or outside in a
fenced, locked area, they are not violating state law, he said.

Over the years, Operation HEMP has uncovered varied amounts of
illegally grown marijuana.

Officers at times have pulled a plant or two being grown in vegetable
gardens to several hundred marijuana plants being grown in fields,
Uribe said.

A Michigan State Police program, Operation HEMP is a domestic
marijuana eradication/supression program that started in 1983.

It is grant funded by the Drug Enforcement Agency and is a cooperative
effort between state, county and local law enforcement agencies.

Illegal marijuana grow operations are popular in Michigan because of
its fertile land and remote areas, according to state police.

Private land used to grow the drug are subject to state and federal
forfeiture laws, and the criminal response has been to grow the plant
on publicly owned land or to trespass onto private land, according to
state police.