GREEN HARVEST

Marijuana eradication missions by helicopter have changed the way
commercial pot growers plant their crops, according to the police
officers who conduct the missions.

"A commercial grower in this day and age does not put a thousand
plants in one location," said Marshall Kanehailua of the Hawaii County
Police Department's vice department. "To avoid eradication, he may
spread out his plants in several districts."

As a result, police who search for the plants by helicopter have a
harder time spotting them.

Sometimes, though, they get lucky and find a large patch. That
happened Tuesday afternoon, when officers found 2,000 plants in an old
papaya field in Kapoho.

"It was a lot of mature plants ready to harvest," Kanehailua
said.

The plants are usually found miles from their owners, making arrests
difficult or impossible. But destroying the marijuana reduces the
amount available for purchase, Kanehailua said. "Although we're not
catching the crooks," he said, "we stop those plants from hitting our
high schools and streets."

The vice squad completed five days of eradication missions Friday,
cutting down 4,629 plants in Puna, Hamakua, North and South Kohala,
and North and South Hilo. The plants ranged from seedlings to 8 feet
tall.

Tuesday morning, a reporter and photographer from the Tribune - Herald
tagged along for part of the 37th mission of the year.

"What you're going to see today is what we do every mission,"
Kanehailua told them.

The day began with a 7 a.m. briefing for the 10 officers and four
pilots participating. Six of the officers were from Honolulu or Maui,
their salaries and travel expenses paid by their own
departments.

"We're winding down the long growing season," Kanehailua told the crew
during the briefing. He discussed the areas each of four crews would
search and told them about three telephone calls received Monday on
the complaint line. As a condition of receiving federal eradication
grant money, the Hawaii County Council requires police to keep a
computer log of all complaints.

After a safety briefing by Officer Robert Hironaka, Kanehailua
reminded the crews about the height restrictions. Helicopters must
maintain an altitude of at least 1,000 feet while "spotting" plants.
If the officers have probable cause or if they see plants, they may
descend to 500 feet to get a better look. They may dip lower to drop
off and pick up officers, but they have to stay 500 feet from homes
and animals.

The officers follow those rules even when they don't have visitors,
Kanehailua insisted. "We wouldn't do anything to jeopardize this
program," he said. "We take pride in what we do."

During the briefing, Kanehailua told the officers to count the plants
first if they found small numbers on house lots because some growers
have permits to grow up to seven plants for medicinal purposes.

"If there's seven and it's disputed, give me a call," he said. "We'll
check the (medical marijuana) registry first. If it's in excess of
seven - eight or nine - I suggest you call first. Don't cut."

After the briefing, the officers drove to the Drug Enforcement
Administration's hangar and began rigging the helicopters. Each
chopper carries a 100 - foot rope called a Short Term Airborne
Operation line. The STABO line is attached to the aircraft at three
different spots as a triple safety precaution.

These lifelines are expensive and have a short shelf life,
approximately 180 hours. "If you step on this line, it gets thrown
out," Kanehailua said. At the end of the rope is a weight.

Once the equipment is in place, pilot Dave Okita lifts off in the
"spotter" chopper. Once airborne, Hironaka sticks his head out of the
doorless helicopter into hurricane force winds and scans the ground
for the telltale bright green of a marijuana patch.

It is an overcast day and Okita must maneuver his aircraft to find a
hole in the clouds.

The plan calls for a flight over Hamakua, but the weather isn't
cooperating. Not far from the airport, Hironaka spies a small
marijuana patch past the end of Kalanianaole Avenue in Keaukaha. He
radios the location to another helicopter, which lands in a clearing
not far from the plants.

Officer Daryl Fernandez gets out and the helicopter lifts off.
Fernandez clips onto the bottom of the STABO line, and the chopper
rises, lifting him off the ground and then lowering him to the
marijuana patch. Fernandez pulls out a machete strapped to his leg and
begins whacking the plants. Meanwhile, the chopper drops a second
officer into position.

Between the two of them, they cut 31 plants. It takes just a few
minutes and then, one - by - one, the officers clip back onto the
line, attach the plants to a second line, and then give the thumbs -
up signal.

The chopper takes off with an officer dangling below and then returns
him and the plants to the landing spot. There, the officers put the
plants into the helicopter, coil the rope, return the plants to the
hangar and get ready to do it again.

The spotter helicopter does a flyover to a wooded area off Stainback
Highway to see if a patch of marijuana police spotted on Monday is
still there. It is, so the other chopper flies to that location and
drops each officer into a separate small patch, where they cut down a
dozen plants in a matter of seconds.

"In the early '80s, there were large patches of marijuana with
hundreds of plants in one place," said Lt. Henry Tavares, who recently
transferred from vice to criminal investigations. With a street value
of up to $1,000 per plant, the growers prefer to scatter the crops, in
hopes of keeping at least some of them out of the hands of the vice
squad, he said.

"To make it difficult for us to eradicate the plants, they spread it
out. A little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit there,"
Kanehailua said. "It may extend from Stainback to Hakalau or from
Saddle Road to Lower Puna."

That's why the vice officers considered it a good find when they
spotted the patch of 2,000 plants in Kapoho later in the day. The
officers tied the plants to the helicopter's skids, stuffed more of
them into the back seat, and then the pilot transported the haul to a
waiting truck.

What happens to the pot plants after police take possession of them?
They go into the police department's evidence cage, Tavares said, and
then at the end of the week, they're taken to the Hilo landfill.
"They'll dig a big hole," he said, "and, with us there supervising it,
they'll mix in trash and bury it."

Despite the eradication efforts, police say the supply of marijuana is
plentiful on the Big Island. A well - known officer learned that
recently in Pahoa, when he set out to make a purchase.

"It took a vice officer seven minutes to buy one ounce," Tavares said.
"Within three days he was negotiating buying a pound of marijuana."