TASK FORCE HARVESTING POT IN STATE ERADICATION

NASHVILLE - In the remote sections of the Cumberland Plateau, government
agents are spending their summer trying to ruin one of the state's top cash
crops.

The Governor's Task Force on Marijuana Eradication has found more than
360,000 patches of marijuana so far this year. On Wednesday, they
confiscated several thousand plants, each worth up to $2,500.

"This is what we do, try to get the drug before it reaches the streets,"
said Maj. Nik Gentry of the Tennessee National Guard Counterdrug Division,
one agency that is part of the task force.

Also participating are the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the state
Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the
Drug Enforcement Administration, and local police and sheriff departments.

"We all work well together," Gentry said. "Last year, Tennessee had the
third-largest marijuana eradication effort in the country. We have plenty of
places to hide it. Or they think they can hide it."

Marijuana raised in Tennessee has a street value of more than $1 billion
annually, government officials estimate. About 75 percent of it is grown in
East Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau.

Marijuana hunters working Wednesday spoke anonymous ly so they wouldn't
reveal exact location of their operations and could protect future searches.

The process of finding the crops includes helicopters that fly over rural
fields looking for a shade of green that is unique to marijuana plants.

"When you know what you're looking for, it just stands out," one pilot said.

On Wednesday, agents spotted a 3-foot-by-5-foot section of marijuana a
half-mile from a country road from the air.

"Keep on heading in that direction," the pilot told two sheriff's deputies
on the ground. They soon reached the plants and cut them down with machetes.
The plants will be burned in a bonfire.

"Somebody is not going to be a happy camper when they check their crop,"
said a drug agent.