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August 20, 2004
Some War
Every year around this time, the peaceful stillness of the countryside is shattered by.....the sounds of helicopters.
State police uncovered hundreds of marijuana plants Thursday that were growing unattended in Madison County.
Authorities said they used police helicopters to find about 700 plants. However, no arrests were made during the drug bust.
No arrests? Yep, there's rarely arrests. Here's how it works. Growers usually plant their crops either on someone else's property or in the national forest. There's not enough manpower to find 'em all, surveill 'em all and arrest 'em all so every year it's the same game. Helicopters outfitted with heat detecting equipment fly around and find some of the patches, which are then destroyed....cost of doing business you might say. Then the better hidden ones will be harvested next month.
Some war on drugs, eh?
Posted by Rita at August 20, 2004 06:27 PM
Comments
Actually you're kind of lucky. Pot growers make much better neighbors than meth lab personnel. Also, the police here have similar manpower/equipment problems and have resorted to similar heat detection methods - they drive around and watch for burning tweakers, running from their exploding labs.
Posted by: kenneth at August 23, 2004 08:19 AM
Unfortunately, they're making the switch to meth around here as well. The more popular method here is to keep one's meth lab in one's vehicle....which is really scary if you think about all the tweakers on the road driving potential bombs.
I don't think pot growers necessarily make better neighbors. One of the other reasons they primarily use helicopters around here is that pot patches are usually surrounded with some pretty deadly booby traps.
Posted by: rita at August 23, 2004 08:35 AM