cannabisnews.com: Police Agencies Weed Out Drugs By Taking To Air!





Police Agencies Weed Out Drugs By Taking To Air!
Posted by FoM on July 25, 1999 at 10:11:11 PT
State's Hidden MJ Crops Found with Helicopter
Source: Arkansas Online
BENTONVILLE -- It's the season.  Outdoor marijuana crops planted this spring are now thriving, and law enforcement eradication efforts are taking place in the air over many Arkansas counties.
In Northwest Arkansas, the Benton County sheriff's office conducted helicopter surveillance for marijuana crops earlier this month but struck out.  Agency officials want help from the public to guide them to marijuana plants, which can be identified by their variegated green leaves and tall stalks. Now in the peak of about a six-month growing season, the plants likely will measure between 4 to 8 feet tall.  The Benton County surveillance mission used almost half of about 10 hours of flying time allocated to the sheriff's office through a federal Drug Enforcement Agency grant that targets marijuana eradication. The Arkansas State Police administers the grant, which allows sheriff's offices a certain number of hours of helicopter time either through the Arkansas National Guard or with private, contracted pilots.  Surveillance teams include a pilot and agency trained "spotters," who are sheriff's deputies and/or state police, Arkansas National Guardsmen and DEA agents. The teams fly during the day, with spotters seeking the shiny-leafed marijuana plants, and coordinate with ground crews, who rush in and chop down the plants once they've been identified from above. If police can link the crop to a suspected grower, the plants are saved for evidence. If not, the plants are burned.  The state program began in 1983, at a time when outdoor marijuana growers sowed their crops blatantly and produced in acres, not the pocket patches that police typically see now.  "In the early '80s, we didn't have the resources for aerial surveillance," said Washington County sheriff's Lt. Lonnie Nichols, a former Carroll County sheriff. "The growers were very open about it back then. We'd literally find it by the acres, thousands of plants. The volume was higher than it is now."  The federal Drug Enforcement Agency ranked Arkansas 13th last year in illegal marijuana cultivation. Arkansas received roughly $340,000 last year under the federal Domestic Cannabis Suppression grant, said Matt Bradford, special enforcement agent in Little Rock. About half that money went toward outdoor marijuana eradication, including spotter training.  The Washington County sheriff's office expects to get about 10 hours of helicopter time this season through the state program, said sheriff's Capt. Chuck Rexford. Beyond that, the agency will rely on the Benton County sheriff's office, which has two helicopters it uses for marijuana eradication.  Counties with a history of marijuana growing get the most flying time under the grant. Typically, those counties are in southeast Arkansas in Delta farmlands and along the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers.  "Chances are if you find a plot somewhere one year, you'll find one there again next year," said Sgt. 1st Class Gary Adams of the Arkansas National Guard.  Under the program, Guard helicopters fly in areas that state police has targeted either historically or through tips as marijuana growing sites. Contracted pilots fly at the direction of the sheriff's offices.  The Benton County sheriff's office tried for a repeat performance this month when it conducted surveillance over a residence east of Rogers where investigators seized about 10 mature marijuana plants in October.  "There's a nice little garden there now," said sheriff's investigator Guy Howe. "It looks like they've got a row of beans, then a row of corn..."  Howe was part of the ground team that made the marijuana seizure on Oct. 8. The team rushed onto the property near Prairie Creek after the pilot radioed that a property owner had spotted the helicopter and was frantically yanking marijuana plants out of the ground.  "The pilot was telling us to, 'hurry up, hurry up! They're pulling the plants out of the ground,' " Howe remembered.  The ground team followed a bread-crumb trail of marijuana leaves from the garden to the front door of the residence, Howe said. Inside, authorities said they seized about 10 marijuana plants stuffed in trash bags.  The property owner, David Dewitt, 51, is charged in Benton County Circuit Court on one felony count of manufacturing marijuana. Trial is set for September. Court files show that Dewitt's attorney is challenging the legality of the search of Dewitt's home.  Marijuana eradication efforts via helicopter, however, violate no privacy laws, Howe said. Air space is open domain.  The mountainous terrain of Northwest Arkansas makes growing marijuana challenging but not impossible. Local authorities say the plants they find are typically on the southern slopes of hills where they can soak up sunlight. Like weeds, marijuana plants flourish with plenty of sunlight and water.  Benton County sheriff's Capt. Sam Blankenship said his agency has seen the quantity of outdoor marijuana seizures diminish in the last five years.  "We're not seeing the big patches we used to see," Blankenship said. "They're spreading the crops out more. We're also seeing smaller crops tucked behind residences as opposed to larger ones out in open fields."  The quantity may be getting smaller, but the quality of the marijuana seems to be getting better, according to Nichols. He said adept growers will isolate the most robust male and female plant of the crop, nurture them and wait for seeds to be produced.  "Then they've got their hybrid seeds," Nichols said. "Those will be the ones they plant the next year."  Female marijuana plants produce buds, which contain THC, the chemical that produces the high experienced by users. The male plant is merely the pollinator. Adams said that growers often destroy the male marijuana plants to frustrate the female ones into growing faster with more potent buds.  Sgt. Randy York of the state police Drug Suppression Unit said eradication efforts have forced many outdoor marijuana growers inside, where plants are grown under heat lamps. An increased availability of marijuana imported from California, Texas and Mexico also has satiated some of the demand once filled by outdoor growers.  "It's easier to go to a street corner and buy cheap Mexican dope than to mess with growing it," York said.  Another trend is for growers to plant crops on public property, such as in a national forest. If the crop isn't on the grower's property, he reduces the risk of having his land or property seized by authorities if he's caught.  A tip last week led Benton County sheriff's investigators to 24 marijuana plants growing outside a residence apparently unbeknownst to the property owner.  A similar scenario played out in Washington County last month when a tip led sheriff's officials to 166 marijuana plants growing on a farm without the owner's knowledge.Published on Sunday, July 25, 1999Copyright © 1999, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. http://www.ardemgaz.com/today/ark/bznwdnwpot25.html
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