SEARCH ON FOR DRUG GROWER

Southwestern Regional Police are looking for the people responsible for
planting $20,000 worth of marijuana on a North Codorus Township farm.

Police discovered the crop Wednesday after getting a call from a farmer who
discovered it harvesting his corn. Police did not release the name of the
farmer.

The farmer helped police harvest the marijuana, which was then destroyed,
Southwestern Regional Police Chief Gregory Bean said.

"The farmer was concerned on two levels," Bean said. First, there was an
"illegal crop on his property, and that's kind of disconcerting."

Second, "people were operating on his property, trespassing ... without his
knowledge."

Bean said someone had been sneaking onto the farmer's land for "quite a bit
of time to cultivate a crop to the extent that it was."

He said marijuana farming has been a problem in his jurisdiction, but he is
hoping police will be able to attack it with the help of the Pennsylvania
National Guard.

The guard runs a program to take police on "fly-overs," making it easier to
see the distinctive green color of the marijuana crops. Southwestern has
only recently begun participating in the program.

"With the inception of the regional department, we're able to deal with
some of those issues," Bean said. The "amount of marijuana has greatly
decreased in the fields that have been looked at on an ongoing basis, but
in our area, we're finding there's a great deal of this illegal crop."

Anyone with information about who planted the marijuana in North Codorus
Township should call Southwestern Regional Police at 225-1333. Police are
also asking farmers to call if they see trespassers or marijuana on their
property.