MARIJUANA - HIGH TIME

Drought Conitions Make It Easier For Police To Locate And Arrest Pot
Growers

Oct. 28 issue - Shorter days and turning leaves signal that autumn is
upon us-and, for those who grow marijuana, that it's time to cut their
covert crops before the first frost. But this year a nationwide
drought has made cultivation more risky than usual, and police are
ramping up efforts to catch farmers.

"MARIJUANA is pretty stingy when it comes to water use," says Allen
St. Pierre of pro-legalization group NORML, "but the drought means
growers have to tend their crops more, and that makes it easier for
police to find them." In Maryland, cultivation arrests have shot up,
an increase police attribute to the easier task of finding patches of
lushly watered pot amid the surrounding dry vegetation. Sophisticated
farmers are setting up irrigation systems by running garden hoses
from creeks to their plots. But such infra-structure in the woods can
tip off police: authorities in western Colorado discovered 10,000
plants on a remote section of federal land after noticing that water
was being diverted from a stream. Growers may take the risk because,
aficionados say, the taste and potency of marijuana improve in dry
years like a fine wine. An ounce of a topnotch strain can go for
$500. (In wet years, crops can be affected by mold and fungus.) The
October harvest is a major economic stimulus in rural communities
from Kentucky to northern California: with an estimated value of $15
billion annually, marijuana is among the nation's top 10 cash crops.