OFFICIALS SEIZE MARIJUANA PLANTS

Authorities did a little mid-summer harvesting Tuesday, pulling some 1,600
marijuana plants out of the ground in Oglethorpe and Wilkes counties. No
arrests were made, but the Governor's Drug Task force estimated they seized
nearly $2 million worth of the green, leafy weed. ''That gives you an idea
of the damage done to the pocketbooks of the local growers,'' said state
Department of Public Safety spokesman Jim Schuler. At the height of
Tuesday's operation, four Georgia State Patrol and National Guard
helicopters buzzed the skies, their pilots on the lookout for the telltale
light-green color that distinguishes marijuana plants from other foliage.
The aircraft took off and refueled at the state patrol's hanger at
Athens-Ben Epps Airport ''There's a lot of aviation pilots going home with
a headache today after squinting into the sun and looking at treetops all
day long,'' Schuler said. The task force, made up of state troopers,
Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, state Department of Natural
Resources officers and local law enforcement officers, found some 1,250
plants in nine locations in rural Oglethorpe County, Schuler said. Schuler
was unsure of the exact locations of the marijuana plots, and Oglethorpe
County Sheriff Jason Lowe was unavailable for comment late Tuesday. Another
32 plants were seized in Clarke County after a pilot spotted them growing
behind a Whitehead Road home while returning to the airport about 10:30
a.m. Tuesday, Athens-Clarke Drug and Vice Unit Mike Hunsinger said. Police
and GBI agents executed a search warrant at 115 1/2 Whitehead Road and
charged 32-year-old Alan Leonard Gordon with manufacturing marijuana and
felony possession of marijuana. Schuler said authorities filled up two
''good-sized pickup trucks'' with marijuana plants, some as tall as 10
feet. They will be burned by local sheriff's authorities -- presumably
downwind. Each summer and fall, authorities take to the Georgia skies in
search of marijuana plants, a time when the crops are usually coming in.
Schuler said the operation will continue in the weeks and months to come.