Pubdate: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 Source: Star-Ledger (NJ) Copyright: 2000 Newark Morning Ledger Co. Contact: 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J., 07102-1200 Website: http://www.nj.com/starledger/ Forum: http://www.nj.com/forums/ Author: Guy Sterling, Star-Ledger Staff AS PLANTS SPROUT UP, STATE POLICE DIG DEEP The call was placed by a hunter scouting deer territory in the woods of rural Winslow Township, Camden County. Marijuana plants were growing deep in a thicket near a local sand quarry, he reported to a special State Police hotline. Within hours, two troopers from the State Police marijuana eradication task force, two National Guardsmen and an investigator with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office - dressed in camouflage outfits and with service weapons on their hips - reached the scene. Twisting and bending their way through the brush, they maneuvered themselves to a clearing no more than 15 feet in diameter and enclosed by chicken wire and nylon fencing. There before them, each stretching its bright green leaves and pungent buds toward the sun, were dozens of marijuana plants, ranging in size from 1 foot to 5 feet. "It's a nice sized plot," noted State Police Detective Sgt. Joseph DeBiase Jr., a member of the task force. "Whoever the grower is knows what he's doing, though he was a little late getting a few of his plants in the ground." For DeBiase and other law enforcement officers assigned to search for and seize marijuana, and arrest those who cultivate it, the early fall harvest season - particularly during a year of lush rainfall - is the busiest time of year. In fact, this year has been so busy that the task force is spread too thinly to conduct stakeouts and wait for a suspect to show up and be arrested. The officers conducting Wednesday's raid, fully aware that they could conduct surveillance for days without arresting anyone, instead cut down and tore up the plants and moved on. "If we don't have time to do a full investigation and arrest the cultivator, we feel it's better to get the pot out of the woods," says DeBiase, a 20-year State Police veteran and narcotics officer since 1983. "The alternative is letting it get to the street." Within a half-hour, the plants were uprooted by hand, counted and placed in a military body bag. The first tally put the haul at 299 plants - then 300 on a second count. "There's got to be a couple more," one of the officers joked. "No one's going to believe 300 on the nose." Sure enough, it wasn't long before further scrutiny of the area turned up several additional plants. Before the day was out, the bag would be dropped off at the State Police lab in Hammonton to have its contents destroyed, and the hunter will be in line for a reward from the state's 3-year-old program that offers up to $500 to anyone providing tips leading to the confiscation of growing marijuana. This past weekend, the toll-free tip hotline, (888) 798-WEED, received around 30 calls, said DeBiase. About two-thirds were legitimate, he estimated, with the rest from pranksters, taunters or people lecturing the State Police on what a waste of time and resources they feel the program is. The issue of expending law-enforcement resources on marijuana eradication is debated at the national level. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, an advocacy group, believes outdoor eradication programs, such as the one in New Jersey, do no more than drive up the price of illegal marijuana while subjecting the police agents who track down the plants to unnecessary risks, like dangerous flyovers. Rendering the effort even more questionable is the fact that 98 percent of the marijuana seized by authorities in the United States is "ditch weed" unworthy of use, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation in Washington, D.C. "This is a terrible waste of limited police manpower and finances," he insisted. But the program has proved effective in reducing supplies of marijuana all across the country, maintained Michael McManus, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C. "What better way to address the marijuana problem than from the grassroots level," he said. Drug agents are finding homegrown pot to be four and five times as potent as the marijuana that was available in the '60s, McManus added. In some instances, it's become so valuable that it is traded for cocaine, he said. What the law enforcement officials and marijuana proponents do not disagree on is the popularity of pot. NORML says marijuana is the No. l cash crop in 33 of the 50 states, even though every state has an eradication program. In New Jersey, St. Pierre added, marijuana is the No. 7 cash crop, behind such agricultural products as cranberries and hay but ahead of apples, potatoes and wheat. The State Police do not compile such figures but acknowledge that marijuana is being grown illegally throughout New Jersey in sizable quantities, more outdoors than indoors. Funding and training through the DEA, and help from the counties in locating plots, have helped in the crackdown, they say. But cutting marijuana off literally at the source has been an initiative the state got involved in only during recent years. Up until 1997, the State Police had only one or two troopers specifically assigned to the task. But as the task force was formed and an emphasis placed on arrests, the number of seizures (indoors and outdoors) and corresponding apprehensions have risen dramatically. In 1994, 21 cultivators were arrested and 1,307 plants confiscated, compared with close to 2,000 arrests last year and the seizure of more than 3,500 plants. Troopers said they won't know how this year compares until after the harvesting season is over. Before the season began, they said, arrests ran slightly below previous years, mostly because the rains that increased crop yields meant little need for growers to be out in the fields irrigating or tending the plants. Most of the marijuana that task force members come upon has been cultivated by individuals strictly in the business of making a buck, said DeBiase. Good homegrown pot can fetch as much as $2,000 to $5,000 a pound, more if broken up and sold in smaller lots, he added. Investigators have noticed another new development in pot growing. They are not seeing as many large fields of marijuana as they once did. There was a time when a tract with a thousand or two plants wasn't all that uncommon. Today, it would be a rarity, said DeBiase. That doesn't necessarily mean the cultivators are putting any fewer seeds in the ground, however. Instead, they're growing marijuana in patches, many with no more than four dozen plants. This is because the law in New Jersey says growing 51 or more plants outdoors can be a first-degree offense punishable by 20 years in prison, DeBiase said. At a seizure in a Warren County cornfield last month, troopers originally thought their take would be 40 or 50 plants. But by the time they were done scouring the field, they'd come up with 400 or so plants. "There's money being made in pot," said DeBiase, as he headed to pursue a tip about an indoor grow in North Jersey after the crew was done in Winslow. "Plenty of money." - ------------------------------------------------- The results: Arrests and seizures since the inception of the New Jersey Domestic Cannabis Eradication and Suppression program: Year ARRESTS PLANTS SEIZED LBS. 1992 64 3,292 NA 1993 17 11,030 NA 1994 21 1,307 NA 1995 55 4,059 NA 1996 56 2,531 657 1997 70 2,515 212 1998 1,115 2,363 5,531.50 1999 1,958 3,502 3,423.73 Total 3,356 30,599 9,824.23 THE STAR-LEDGER SOURCE: State Police - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk