AGENTS SPEND SUMMER IN MARIJUANA HUNT

In 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 Tuesday and Wednesday, they
confiscated several thousand plants in Rhea and Cumberland counties, each
batch 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's
departments. "Last year, Tennessee had the third-largest marijuana
eradication effort in the country," Maj. Gentry said. "We have plenty of
places to hide it. Or they think they can hide it." In Rhea County alone,
the task force confiscated almost 10,000 plants, according to Rhea County
Sheriff Leon Sneed. Almost a dozen searchers found the marijuana, which had
a street value of up to $12 million, he added. Deputies arrested Chuck and
Jesse Day for manufacturing marijuana, Sheriff Sneed said. Also, Darrell
Murphy was arrested after investigators found 10 cannabis plants growing
behind his home. Other marijuana plantings were found on Evensville, Shutin
and Grandview mountains, officials said. 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 on the
Cumberland Plateau. Searchers use helicopters to 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.