GETTING AT THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

It's 90 degrees and ticks, chiggers and snakes are out en masse.
Kentucky State Police officers are, too.

In the unrelenting heat, sweat drips from the troopers' faces, and
their arms are covered with fresh, bloody scratches from rubbing
against chest-high thorn bushes so thick they form veritable walls of
vegetation.

As a helicopter circles overhead to guide them, the officers - wearing
long pants, boots and short-sleeved shirts that allow air to circulate
over their bodies - swing hatchets and machetes against the brush,
hacking their way through to their goal: sticky, blue-green marijuana
plants hidden by pot farmers.

Marijuana growing season and marijuana eradication season are one in
the same, and nearly every day last week, the KSP sent officers from
its Elizabethtown post into rural parts of five of the counties it
covers. On Wednesday alone, searchers collected more than 900 plants
in a small triangle of Hardin, LaRue and Nelson counties.

The crop was thrown into the beds of KSP four-wheel-drive trucks and
taken to Hardin County's Pearl Hollow Landfill, where they were buried
immediately

under at least 10 feet of garbage, KSP Sgt. Ron Eckart
said.

The scene last week repeats every summer, the prime growing season for
the easily recognizable seven-leaf cannabis sativa, the scientific
name for marijuana. Cops try to find the crooks' pot and remove it
before it is harvested and sold illegally.

Each plant can net a grower an average of $2,000 in illegal street
sales, authorities said.

"You know they call this the tobacco belt, but a lot more money is
made around here from marijuana," said KSP Sgt. Courtney Longacre.

Few arrests result from the eradication efforts. Most plants are found
too far from any residence to associate with landowners. But the loss
of the crops, police said, is still a blow to growers.

Eradication techniques haven't advanced as quickly as growing methods.
Though officers rely on a helicopter outfitted with cameras and other
high-tech gear to locate plants, they still can only reach their
target by traipsing through uninviting terrain and cutting them down
by hand.

As one person on the Wednesday operation fell face first into the
bushes when his feet became entangled in the dense undergrowth,
Longacre yelled out some advice, "Pick your knees up higher. It's the
only way to get through this mess."

The KSP uses trucks to get over the mostly rough terrain, and keeps a
marked cruiser nearby in case a grower is caught in the field and arrested.

Growers, on the other hand, have become more clandestine by planting
seeds in starter beds or rock wool. From there, the fragile plants are
carried into the woods and set in small patches, fertilized and left
to mature.

Growers used to set hundreds, if not thousands, of plants in open
areas. But now that authorities use more aerial surveillance, patches
have gotten smaller and moved to rougher ground. Often, a 30-minute
hike by police will net only a handful of plants.

Last year a single plot of about 2,000 plants was discovered in LaRue
County, but such finds are rare.

"The plants are easy to see from the air. Nothing else is that color,"
said KSP Detective J.P. Taylor, who often rides with Carlisle as a
spotter. "You can also see small trails from the air and at the end of
them will be a little clearing with the (marijuana) plants."

Growers each have their own method of ensuring that others, besides
the police, stay away from their crops. Some place mothballs on the
ground to keep vermin away, others cut up bars of soap to keep deer
from munching the succulent leaves.

Bags of insect repellent and fertilizer are frequently found near the
plants, showing the time and care that goes into their growth.

Often, pot often is found within a few hundred feet of homes, a few
yards off the interstate, along creek banks and in farm crops and
blackberry thickets.

Although growers make efforts to hide their operations by moving
around from year to year, some just don't seem to know when they've
been caught. One area in Hardin County less than a mile from Blue
Grass Parkway netted about 100 plants on Wednesday. The site is a
favorite for growers, officers said. The patch has been raided each of
the past seven years.

"I don't know why they keep trying to grow there," Eckart said. "Maybe
it's not the same people every year."

The helicopter has the ability to hover low so that its pilot, KSP
Capt. Brian Carlisle, and his spotters can point officers where to go.
Radio contact, use of maps and familiarity with the area is crucial,
too.

But often, sight isn't the only sense that comes into
play.

"A lot of times you'll smell it before you can even see it," KSP
Detective Terry Scott said last week as he sought a marijuana patch.

Moments after he said that, the unmistakable scent of pot filled the
air.

"If you smell it once, you'll always remember it," Scott said. "It has
a unique odor."

Police know they'll never find all the plants out there, but keeping
as much of it as possible off the market and "putting a dent in the
doper's pocketbooks" is their goal, said Trooper Jeff Gregory, who
volunteers each year to help in the eradication.

The total loss to growers in the area last week was 4,715 plants
discovered in 193 different plots. Officers worked Hardin, LaRue,
Nelson, Bullitt and Breckinridge counties and estimate the financial
loss to growers at about $9.43 million.

The roundup netted only a few plants that were "in buds," meaning they
were close to being ready for harvest. Most of the plants were
immature, at about 3 to 5 feet tall. A healthy, full-grown pot plant
in this soil and climate can measure up to about 8 feet tall, Eckart
said.

Due to the long growing season - from early spring until late October
- - he said growers would likely try to set out more patches to replace
the ones officers cut, often in the exact same spot.

"We'll come back to these areas in the fall, and there they'll be,"
Eckart said.