KPD'S GREEN HARVEST COMPLETED

Last week, the Kaua'i Police Department in partnership with other law
enforcement agencies conducted a marijuana eradication operation over West
Kaua'i.

A "Green Harvest" helicopter flew over Waimea Valley last Wednesday and
Thursday, but the police department has not released the number of plants or
amount in pounds of marijuana seized, or if any arrests resulted from the
operation.

The Green Harvest program is funded by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency
and has been run in the state since 1976 when the exercises started on the
Big Island. Kaua'i and all police departments in the state continue to
assist each other in Green Harvest, and work in partnership with the state's
conservation and resource enforcement office (under Department of Land and
Natural Resources). Officers are lowered from helicopters and use knives to
chop down plants, which are usually chopped up and mixed with other
greenwaste and used as mulch.

Operation Green Harvest is part of the DEA's Domestic Cannabis
Eradication/Suppression Program, which partners federal, state and local
governments. This year, Kaua'i received about $143,000 to conduct quarterly
Green Harvest operations.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 authorizes the DEA to eradicate
domestically cultivated cannabis on both private and public lands.

In a TGI report published in late May, Kaua'i Police Department Deputy Chief
Wilfred Ihu said that without Operation Green Harvest, the KPD would not be
able to seize large amounts of plants being grown on state and private
lands. Marijuana eradication operations separate from Green Harvest are
limited to seizure of processed marijuana through investigations and search
warrants, he said.

Last July's Green Harvest netted 9,650 plants in sizes ranging from
seedlings to eight feet tall.