Cannabis News Media Awareness Project
  Forest Service Keeps Pot-Growing in Check
Posted by FoM on January 08, 2001 at 11:27:41 PT
By Shelly Whitehead, Post Staff Reporter 
Source: Kentucky Post 

cannabis The U.S. Forest Service and other law enforcement agencies destroyed more than 200,000 marijuana plants in Eastern Kentucky's sprawling Daniel Boone National Forest last summer.

Although below the record levels found in the early 1990s, the volume of pot being grown still is enough to make the forest a dangerous place.


The 695,000-acre forest represents less than 1 percent of the state's land, but accounts for about 40 percent of the pot eradicated statewide, according to Capt. Harold Sizemore, who oversees the anti-drug efforts in the Boone forest.

Two years ago, the federal government and three mountain states set up a joint operation, the Appalachian High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, to re-focus efforts on eradicating marijuana on public lands. HIDTA includes 65 counties in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. The forest service has seven people dedicated to HIDTA.

Q: During the second year of Kentucky's marijuana eradication efforts in 1991, more t han 372,000 plants were destroyed in Daniel Boone Forest. Since then, fewer plants have been eradicated annually. So are you stemming production, or just losing the war?

A: I think we've brought it somewhat in check, based on numbers from previous years. But also a lot of it revolves around having the equipment and manpower to do the job.

In years when we did not have sufficient number of aircraft to spot it, our numbers were down. That situation has improved and reflecting that, we've seen increasing numbers.

Q: Are you also making strides in capturing growers?

A: We're up on arrests. We're taking down large drug trafficking organizations.

Two just went down that were operating in Daniel Boone. One was operating in McCreary, Whitley and Pulaski counties. The investigations showed these people brought 300 pounds of marijuana a month into the area. If you figure that at about $2,000 a pound, you're looking at $600,000 dollars a month. And it would probably sell for more than that on street.

The other one was in Clay County and it was an operation of a man and his family who were selling marijuana and a lot of prescription drugs.

They were known for having more traffic into their place of business, than the local Wendy's drive-through restaurant. In that case the daddy and his six kids (all adults) are all going to prison.

Q: Growers choose to cultivate on public land to avoid forfeiture laws and stymie tracking efforts. But how do a few illegally grown weeds threaten hikers or campers to a national forest?

A: It could pose a serious threat to them. They could be met with armed confrontation, particularly from a grower. They could step on a booby trap. They could receive threats or intimidations from growers.

Last year, we got information of a person who was going into the woods to go ginseng or root digging when a person drove up in a four-wheel-drive vehicle and drove them out of the area. He was armed with a shotgun, and he said he'd lost enough already and drove them out of the area.

We have a lot of people who say they won't go into the forest until the marijuana season' s over with.

Q: What about you? Would you take your family into the forest during the summer growing season?

A: I would be awful cautious. I would not permit them to go just any place. There are c ertain areas of the forest, for instance, that I know where marijuana is grown - though it's hard to say that they're growing marijuana here and not here, because sometimes that reverses on you.

Q: What other practices do marijuana growers use in the forest to elude law enforcement's eye?

A: We have seen that they've gone from large plots to smaller ones. Last year they we re averaging 57 plants per plot. And last year we cut 3,700 plots.

They scatter them out. A lot of them are much smaller than that.

Q: Much of Daniel Boone Forest is extremely thick with both mature and new tree growth. How do you detect these few plants among so much dense vegetation?

A: We usually use the National Guard's OH-58 helicopters because they're smaller an d more maneuverable. We do use airplanes too, single-engine airplanes, to spot from the air, too.

We go up daily during the eradication season from June 15 to Sept. 30. We take spotters up and they just develop an eye for it. They can detect the colors and leaf patterns and other distinctions...

Q: Do you feel like you're getting a significant handle on the problem?

A: Overall, I feel like we are making a dent in things. I think the biggest impact we've had over the years is on the number of plants being grown.

We've seen that go from 300,000 in 1991 down to 200,000 this year. So I think that's the biggest impact we've had.

But we do need more manpower for investigation, and more equipment. My biggest frustration is not to be able to do more - not just having sufficient manpower to do the job.

Arrests:

Eradication of marijuana and arrests in the Daniel Boone National Forest, after peaking respectively in 1991 and 1995, are again on the rise:

Year Plants Destroyed Arrests
1990 - 359,000 - 20
1991 - 372,833 - 21
1995 - 112,064 - 143
1997 - 165,255 - 135
1998 - 143,350 - 39
1999 - 192,685 - 53
2000 - 201,238 - 84

Source: U.S Forest Service

The Kentucky Post's Q&A with a person in the news runs on Monday.

Source: Kentucky Post (KY)
Author: Shelly Whitehead, Post Staff Reporter
Published: January 8, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Kentucky Post
Address: 421 Madison Avenue, Coviington, Ky. 41011
Contact: kyedits@cincypost.com
Website: http://www.kypost.com/

Related Articles:

Pot: The Cash Crop King
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5740.shtml

Marijuana Thrives in Appalachias Depressed Economy
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5729.shtml


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Comment #2 posted by aocp on January 08, 2001 at 18:23:12 PT:

Laughable
>Q: Are you also making strides in capturing growers?

>A: We're up on arrests. We're taking down large drug trafficking organizations.

Uh-huh. I'll put down 20 bucks right here to state that whatever these goons think they're accomplishing don't mean jack. Unless and until these guys plan on *permanently* guarding ALL of our forests from the evil dope growers, the growers'll just pack up and move elsewhere, into infinite.

Oops! I forgot all about the bud from Mexico and Canada and all the neato indoor hydroponic stuff! And here i thought my fulltime college endeavors coupled with three jobs was a tall order to fill! These guys are sure hard up for a hobby.

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Comment #1 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on January 08, 2001 at 15:04:34 PT
KY lies
>>It could pose a serious threat to them. They could be met with armed confrontation, particularly from a grower. They could step on a booby trap. They could receive threats or intimidations from growers. <<

But they wouldn't have to DO that if there wasn't a SHOOTING WAR ON... jeez, you think these people would get it in their HEADS!! They never have these problems in the TOBACCO fields, do they? Nobody ever dies for a field full of barley and hops anymore, right?

Take the above quote and replace every "grower" with "nark" and you've got a lot better version of the truth.

And of course the estimates about the total Kentucky crop are merely guesswork, coupled with the ditchweed factor (how many of these plants were actually intended grow ops?), and the fact that a 3-day-old seedling is considered, using the DEA's fuzzy math, a pound's worth of bud worth $2,000.

Are we getting our $40,000,000,000-per-year's worth yet??

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