POT GROWERS LEAVING CROP FOR METH PROFITS

Area law enforcement are saying a hike in the amount of illegal
methamphetamine production is likely the cause for a sharp drop in the
local harvest of marijuana.

With drug enforcers hitting the fields around southern Tennessee with
machetes in their annual battle against pot, officials are saying that the
state's top cash crop is taking a back seat to meth.

Winchester Public Safety director Dennis Young called the reports
indicating a shift of producing from pot to meth as "an accurate statement."

He made the assessment while watching Winchester Police carry out yet
another raid on a suspected meth lab on Tuesday, one of three made on the
same morning.

"Meth production is way up. A lot of people used to raise marijuana, but
now they are cooking meth," Young said.

Mark Hutchins of the Tennessee's Alcoholic Beverage Commission, part of the
governor's Task Force on Marijuana Eradication says pot harvests are down
sharply in both Franklin and Grundy counties - once both known for bumper
crops of the weed.

He says people are turning away from marijuana in favor of the easily
produced, highly addictive and sometimes deadly drug.

Authorities confiscated more than 80,000 marijuana plants in Franklin
County in 1997 but last year's harvest dropped to a little more than 18,000
plants.

In Grundy County, known as the capital of marijuana production in the mid
1990's, only had 13,000 illegal plants seized in 2001, a decrease from more
than 18,000 plants seized in 1997.

While marijuana confiscation have dropped due to the rise in meth use, pot
is still the state's top cash crop, with a street value of more than $1
billion a year, law enforcement officials said.

"Marijuana used to be the most common drug we prosecuted on, but that's
changed," said District Attorney Mike Taylor of the 12th Judicial District.
"Meth has surpassed marijuana."

According to Greg Sullivan of the U.S. attorney's office in Chattanooga,
dealers are opting for mobile, easily concealed meth labs, where everything
needed to make "poor man's cocaine" is on a shelf at the local discount store.

"Meth can be made in a matter of hours, where with growing marijuana you're
talking months," Mr. Sullivan said. "Also, one ounce of meth can fetch a
dealer $1,000, and one ounce of marijuana is only worth about $100."

According to reports from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
Tennessee has ranked in the top five states for eradication of cultivated
marijuana plants for the past 10 years.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., recently helped get $1 million to keep the
Southeast Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force in business for a third year.

DEA statistics show that task force officials seized 461 labs last year, up
from 246 the year before. Task force records show 519 people were arrested.

The Governor's Task Force for Marijuana Eradication received $672,000 this
year from a federal grant.

In 2001, the marijuana task force's annual report said agents destroyed
478,000 plants, up 95,940 plants from the year before.

In Tennessee last year, 99 people were arrested for growing marijuana,
according to the report. In 2000, law enforcement officials arrested 731
growers.