Pubdate: Tue, 28 Aug 2001
Source: Telegraph (NH)
Copyright: 2001 Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.nashuatelegraph.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/885

BUMPER YEAR FOR MARIJUANA

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - The harvest has begun for one of Vermont's more 
lucrative but illegal cash crops - marijuana.

Vermont's marijuana crop looks bountiful this year, law enforcement 
officials say. By weight, the yield never comes close to that of other 
agricultural products. But the value of the marijuana crop rivals Vermont's 
legal agricultural products.

"We are just coming into the harvest time, and so we're on guard right 
now," said Lt. Jim Colgan with the state police's Marijuana Eradication 
Resource Team, which conducts surveys by air and foot to track down the plants.

The season is still early but police have begun patrols, finding isolated 
plots.

Burlington and state police confiscated 29 six-foot plants from a cornfield 
in Colchester on Friday. The officers pulled 100 from wetlands in 
Burlington's Intervale on Aug. 20. The week before, Essex police yanked 95 
plants from a river's edge.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration said Vermont police pulled 
about 3,700 pot plants last year. That harvest was valued at between $6 
million and $10 million with each plant producing up to a pound of 
marijuana, which sells for between $2,000 and $3,500.

By comparison, Vermont's apple crop was valued at $12 million in 2000.

The state police team had pulled 560 plants by the end of July, about 20 
more than this time last year, Colgan said.

"If you are going to put it up against heroin, obviously heroin takes a 
higher priority," said Burlington Police Lt. Emmet Helrich said, "but we 
are always working these cases, too, and we are all over it if we find 
something."

Colgan said finding the crops was fairly easy, but finding the growers was 
more difficult.

Colgan estimated only about 25 percent of the growers were caught. Last 
year state police made 50 arrests for outdoor marijuana.

"We take it as far as we can on limited resources," said Cpl. Aaron Noble 
of Shelburne Police, who have found fewer than 20 plants in fields this 
year. "We have a lot of rural areas where people can grow and hide their 
operations."

Penalties for convicted growers are stiff, ranging from three years in jail 
for more than three plants, to a maximum of 15 years and a $500,000 fine 
for more than 25 plants.
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