CASH CROP UP IN SMOKE

Coshocton County Sheriff Tim Rogers watches as an estimated $100,000 worth
of marijuana is burned at the sheriff's office firing range Tuesday
afternoon in Coshocton.

COSHOCTON -- Harvest time is approaching, and the Coshocton County Sheriff's
Office is trying to beat some cultivators to their crops.

About 100 marijuana plants went up in smoke at the sheriff's office firing
range Wednesday afternoon.

"It's a conservative estimate that it (the plants that were destroyed)
represents about $100,000 on the street," Sheriff Tim Rogers said.

The plants were taken from four different locations in the county. Three
were found from the air, and one was reported by a citizen out working his
hunting dogs.

Law enforcement begins scouting for plants in late summer and will continue
through farm harvest time, usually about the first frost, Rogers said.

Marijuana plants are sometimes hidden in fields after corn plants have
reached a height that farmers can no longer go in and spray, said Capt. Jon
Mosier of the sheriff's office. People who grow the illegal crop try to get
plants harvested before corn is taken from fields. They also grow the plants
in secluded woods, and will try to get them out before several hunting
seasons get under way in September.

Rogers said his office occasionally gets help from the state through the
Ohio Attorney General's Office, which supplies a helicopter for scouting.

And Rogers is a pilot himself. He spends personal time in the air, and
sometimes makes a find.

During the last few years, cultivators seem to have learned to scatter their
crops. Instead of finding 2,000 plants in one area, which happened once in
Coshocton County, there may be only 10 or 20 plants in one spot.

It doesn't matter, Rogers said. When you're in the air, marijuana looks
different from anything else down there.

"One plant is just as important to us as 100," Rogers said.

No arrests have been made regarding these particular marijuana plants,
although how much was found at each location and when, is documented. If
arrests had been made, the plants would have been locked up at a secure
location for evidence instead of being burned.

"That's $100,000 worth of dope that won't be out on the streets being sold
to school kids," Mosier said.