From: lpb@florida.swdc.stratus.com (Len Bucuvalas)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: chopper aids fight against marijuana - indictment of wod!
Date: 8 Sep 92 21:44:43 GMT
Distribution: talk

In article <1992Sep3.1739.7558@execnet> "tom betz" <tom.betz@execnet.com> writes:
>Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.drugs
>Subject: Chopper aids fight against marijuana - indictment of WOD!
>
>The following story appeared on page 1B of the Rochester NY Democrat and 
>Chronicle, Thursday, August 27, 1992.  I offer it here as a fine example 
>of the tax dollars wasted in fighting the benign weed.  
>
>The last paragraph of the story contains one of the most stinging 
>indictments of the War On Some Drugs that was ever uttered in ignorance by 
>a Drug Warrior.
>
>----------------------------- cut here -------------------------------
>
>Chopper aids fight against marijuana
>by Greg Livadas -- Staff writer
>
>        THROOP - Between the rolling cow pastures and sprawling cornfields 
>of Cayuga County, a state police helicopter hovers a few feet above the 
>ground.
>
>        Its pilot, Tech. Sgt. Mark Wadopian, eyes the weeds blown wildly 
>about under the chopper's rotors.
>
>        He looks for marijuana.  Police use the helicopter when they get a 
>tip that marijuana might be growing in an area.
>
>        Marijuana farmers "learn new tactics," Wadopian says.  "They don't 
>plant it between the corn rows anymore.  They plant it in the rows 
>themselves.  They're getting tricky, that's for sure."
>
>        Troopers have used the helicopter in a marijuana-eradication 
>program for several years.  When mature, the marijuana plants stand tall 
>and stick out from surrounding vegetation, which is usually lighter in 
>color this time of year.
>
>        Growers harvest their marijuana between August and the first 
>frost.
>
>        Senior Investigator Donald K. Wentworth says most people grow 
>marijuana for their own consumption.  But others are in it to make money. 
>He says marijuana sells for as much as $3,000 a pound on the street.
>
>        Troopers have looked for the plants in numerous locations in the 
>10-county, Troop E area this week.  Yesterday, they found nearly 20 plants 
>in Cayuga and Ontario counties.  Most were "in cornfields in the middle of 
>nowhere.  The closest person probably lives a mile away," Wentworth said.
>
>        No arrests were made.
>
>        "Ninety percent of the time you don't get an arrest," Wentworth 
>said.  "What you're doing is getting the crop."
>
>        A few years ago, the helicopter was used to find a ton of 
>marijuana growing in a 10-acre Steuben County cornfield.  Troopers 
>couldn't carry out that much marijuana, so the used a corn-picker to 
>harvest the entire field and burned the plants later.
>
>        The maximum penalty for growing marijuana is a year in jail.  But 
>if more than 100 plants are involved, the federal Drug Enforcement 
>Administration could prosecute, with a minimum mandatory penalty of five 
>years in prison.
>
>        In one of the searches this week, troopers met with Cayuga County 
>sheriff's deputies, who had tips on where marijuana might be growing.  The 
>deputies highlighted maps and the helicopter hovered over the area while 
>troopers waited below in cars.
>
>        Troopers search areas where marijuana was found in previous years, 
>where people have seen it growing or where informants say it is growing.
>
>        As the helicopter circled a field next to a farmhouse on a 
>dead-end street, a woman came out to ask Wentworth, who was waiting on the 
>road, whether they were looking for a fugitive.  She later said a former 
>resident of house [sic] was known to grow marijuana, but he had moved.
>
>        "I don't even know what it looks like if I walked through it."
>
>        "Usually, the person who owns the land has no idea that it's 
>there," Wentworth said.
>
>        Later, Wadopian swooped down below the tree line in the back yard 
>of another house.  Not seeing any marijuana, he continued on to the next 
>site.
>
>        That resident - a man about 20 years old - shook his fist and 
>shouted an obscenity to Wentworth as he drove by.  The man later called 
>the sheriff to complain about the helicopter.
>
>        "We don't even get the tip of the iceberg, but we want to give 
>them the fear,"  Wentworth said.  "If we don't give them the threat that 
>this helicopter may be flying over their yard, every backyard is going to 
>have it growing."

Had this been in another country that helicopter would have been
shot down. Too bad! My Opinion! THEY need to have the "fear" put
into THEM! >:^{
>
>-------------------------- cut here ------------------------------------
>
>Comments? Questions?
>
>This mindset scares the hell out of me.  
>
>
>---
> ~ WinQwk 2.0 a#299 ~ Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?
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Len
--
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The accountability of government has gone to the point where the very
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		-- Ralph Nader @ Harvard Law School, 1/15/92
Xref: sparky talk.politics.drugs:6149 alt.drugs:15385