METH OVERSHADOWING MARIJUANA

Quicker Profits, Less Risk Prompt Shift, Officials Say

Even while drug enforcers hit the fields with machetes in their annual
battle against marijuana in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia,
officials say both states' top cash crop is taking a back seat to
methamphetamine.

"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."

Reasons including profitability and "instant gratification" are driving
drug sellers to rethink their illegal product of choice, said Greg Sullivan
with the U.S. attorney's office in Chattanooga. More dealers are opting for
mobile, easily concealed methamphetamine labs, where everything needed to
make "poor man's cocaine" is on a shelf at the local discount store, he
said. "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."

Marijuana is the most readily available illegal drug in Tennessee and
should be a top priority, especially during late summer's peak harvest
time, said Lt. Tommy Farmer with the narcotics division of the Hamilton
County Sheriff's Department. 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.

Georgia ranks in the top 10. Marijuana is both states' No. 1 cash crop for
the decade, the DEA says. But because of limited resources, fighting "fad"
drugs such as methamphetamine takes precedence over other substances, law
enforcers said. "Five years ago, it was crack cocaine," Lt. Farmer said.
"Now it's meth, and as much as I hate to say it, the amount of attention it
takes to work these kinds of cases affects what we do with marijuana
cases." Mr. Sullivan said more money now is being spent to fight
methamphetamine than marijuana. "That's what you want to have happen," Mr.
Sullivan said. "You want to be in front of the curve, not behind it." U.S.
Rep. Zach Wamp, RTenn., 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. "I think with the
arrests we're making, we're seeing more peo-ple up on meth charges," said
Rhea County Sheriff Leon Sneed. "I think a lot of marijuana users who
aren't getting a high anymore are using meth." Law enforcers said
methamphetamine is more dangerous to make and to take than marijuana.
Marijuana use crosses genders, races, age groups and income brackets, said
Stacey Meeks with the Lookout Mountain Drug Task Force in Georgia.
Methamphetamine is most commonly used by white, working-class men in rural
areas.

The effects include a tendency toward violence, Mr. Meeks said. Drug Task
Force agents also said cleaning up a potentially explosive meth lab is more
dangerous than cutting down marijuana plants. "The chemicals in a lab are
odorless and colorless, and you don't know you're being exposed to them,"
said Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force Cmdr. Chris Hill.
That doesn't mean marijuana is harmless, said Cindy Simpson, a forensic
chemist with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab in Trion, Ga.
The drug can be laced with hallucinogenic substances, cocaine and even
embalming fluid, officials said. "Just because it's a plant doesn't mean
it's clean," Ms. Simpson said. "You don't know where it came from or what
someone has mixed with it."

The Task Forces

During the past few weeks, members of the marijuana task force pulled up
more than 360,000 marijuana plants in Tennessee, said Mark Hutchins, chief
law enforcement officer with the Alcoholic Beverage Commission, which
participates in the task force.

With a few weeks still left in the growing season, the task force already
has destroyed almost $722 million worth of marijuana. "The counties on the
Cumberland Plateau are usually high producers," Mr. Hutchins said. Last
year, the Georgia drug task force reported 238 marijuana-eradication
missions in 138 counties.

There were 100 arrests and 56,143 marijuana plants with a street value of
$112 million, according to the task force. The governor's task force in
Tennessee, composed of members of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation,
Tennessee National Guard, ABC and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency,
recovered more than 10,000 plants from Rhea County last week. Three people
were arrested and charged with manufacturing marijuana, but arrests don't
keep pace with seizures. "They don't have the manpower or time to lay on
patches and catch people coming to them," Mr. Taylor said. And
historically, he said, most marijuana growers have planted on land owned
either by the U.S. government or big landowners, "not in their backyard."
In Georgia, the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force works
with the Governor's Drug Task Force to destroy marijuana.

A flyover in July netted 1,200 plants growing on U.S. Forest Service
property in Chattooga and Walker counties, Mr. Hill said. Dade County
Sheriff Philip Street said most of the marijuana seized in his county comes
from routine traffic stops.

One patrolman has accumulated 30 pounds of the drug in the past few months.
"Marijuana is an issue everywhere," he said. "Anybody that says it's not
doesn't really know their community." Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson
said minors tell him it's easier to get marijuana than cigarettes or beer.
"You don't have to have an ID to get marijuana," he said.