RAIDS LEAVE POLICE UP TO NECKS IN DOPE

STELLARTON - A half-tonne of marijuana looks like this: a chest-high
pile of woody-stemmed, aromatic green stuff spread on the cement floor
of a garage at the Pictou County RCMP office in Stellarton.

Investigators seized more than 750 plants, some up to two metres tall
and most of them bushy, during a series of raids in Pictou County on
Tuesday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The plants were full of buds and appeared ready to harvest, noted RCMP
Const. Bill Rudolph, lead investigator in the case.

"They have an estimated street value of more than $500,000," he said
Wednesday. "That's a conservative estimate."

About 20 officers from the RCMP and municipal police forces' street
crime enforcement unit joined in the search of sites identified by
earlier RCMP aerial surveillance.

Of the 15 sites checked in rural Pictou County, eight or nine had
marijuana growing on them.

Most were in the western portion of the county, Const. Rudolph
said.

Residents reported an influx of police Tuesday along Highway 6,
between Pictou and River John, as well as a large rental truck that
was parked with the patrol cars.

Police used rental trucks to transport the marijuana to be weighed and
tallied before storing it in Stellarton until Wednesday, when it was
moved again to a separate site for destruction.

The matter is still under investigation, and no one has been arrested
yet, Const Rudolph said.