LANDOWNER: 'POT' ACTUALLY DEER FOOD

'Pot' Plants Are Actually Deer Food, Landowner Says

HARRISON COUNTY - Narcotics officers who seized more than 500 suspicious
plants on Monday might have had their first encounter with a plant that
looks like marijuana, but isn't.

The man who claims he planted them at a hunting camp off Herman Ladner Road
said they're kenaf, a high-protein plant that attracts deer and increases
their size. He's angry, and he blames the Harrison County sheriff for
tearing up the land and destroying his investment.

"I want him to fix the road and compensate me for the plants," said
53-year-old Marion Waltman of West Harrison County. "They drove heavy
equipment right down the center of my field. That crop would have been good
until the second hard freeze."

Waltman, president of the Boarhog Hunting Club, said he paid $2,000 for a
ton of kenaf and hemp seeds. He planted them in three fields the club
leases from a timber company. Herman Ladner Road is north of Mississippi 53
and Cemetery Road.

"The sheriff could have come to me and asked or taken samples before he did
anything," Waltman said.

He said he learned the plants were destroyed while listening to news
reports Monday night.

Sheriff George H. Payne Jr. said he never reported the plants were
marijuana, only that they appeared to be marijuana.

"We knew we were going to be criticized, whatever we did," Payne said. "We
decided it was in the best interests of the public to remove it and test
it. We had received complaints of people going out there and pulling off
the leaves."

Officers performed a field test, but the test was inconclusive, he said.
Samples are being sent to a crime lab and to Mississippi State University,
which is developing and testing kenaf seeds. Test results will take a
couple of weeks.

Waltman said the kenaf plant does look like marijuana.

"But it has seven leaves at the top and okra-looking leaves at the bottom,"
he said. "Marijuana only has five leaves. Any drug officer should have been
able to figure it out."

Waltman said he ordered a supply through a Senatobia biologist who also is
a game warden.

Capt. Steve Campbell, the sheriff's internal affairs director, said he
learned Tuesday that narcotics officers in other areas of the state also
have found plants that closely resemble marijuana.

"We noticed a slight difference," Campbell said. "But it's kind of like
you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. What if it turned out to
be marijuana and we left it there?"

MSU is studying two strains of kenaf, Campbell said.

One strain, Everglade 41, has broad leaves, and resembles the majority of
plants removed from west Harrison County. The other strain, T-2 or
Thailand, has a leaf that looks identical to marijuana.

The university sells the seeds for $3.25 a pound, Campbell said, and the
seeds are so tiny that both kinds could easily end up in the same bag.

"That would lend credence to why we found 10 times as much of one kind of
plant as the other," Campbell said.

Waltman said his seed package included a mixture of hemp. Officers didn't
remove the hemp.

"Hemp's not illegal," he said. "It's a member of the hibiscus family."

Waltman said he also wants an apology from the sheriff.

"And I want trespassing charges filed against the people who have been out
there harvesting the plants, thinking it was marijuana, and the kids that
have been riding four-wheelers out there."