Pubdate: Wed, 17 May 2000 Source: International Herald-Tribune (France) Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2000 Contact: 181, Avenue Charles de Gaulle, 92521 Neuilly Cedex, France Fax: (33) 1 41 43 93 38 Website: http://www.iht.com/ KENTUCKY SWAPS MOONSHINE FOR MARIJUANA In the rugged hills of eastern Kentucky, known more for poverty than for beauty, more than 40 percent of the U.S. marijuana crop is grown: a crop worth $3.9 billion annually in a region where the average household income has yet to surpass $8,000 a year. The region is the perfect drug-growing economic model, according to Clayton, a professor at the University of Kentucky who wrote a report for the United Nations on marijuana in "Third World" Appalachia. "You've got that large level of unemployment,"he said, "you've got insularity and you've got a need for cash." While the rest of the country has prospered, the Kentucky region's endemic poverty and ideal growing climate have fed the illegal industry. Rugged terrain provides natural camouflage for plants worth $2,000 each on the street. "It's tremendously profitable," said Joseph Famularo, an U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Kentucky. Some say the problem is partly a social one, that the offspring of the backwoods Kentuckians, who distilled illegal moonshine, have shifted to a more profitable product. The cat-and-mouse games between the authorities and the growers, however, are much the same sometimes comic, sometimes deadly serious. Growers often carry firearms, plant animal traps and steal each other's bounty. A hiker who stumbles onto someone's crop risks getting shot. "It's a nasty, rotten business," Mr. Famularo said. - --- MAP posted-by: Thunder