Pubdate: Fri, 23 Aug 2002
Source: Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN)
Copyright: 2002 Chattanooga Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.timesfreepress.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/992

AGENTS SPEND SUMMER IN MARIJUANA HUNT

In remote sections of the Cumberland Plateau, government agents are 
spending their summer trying to ruin one of the state's top cash crops. The 
Governor's Task Force on Marijuana Eradication has found more than 360,000 
patches of marijuana so far this year. On Tuesday and Wednesday, they 
confiscated several thousand plants in Rhea and Cumberland counties, each 
batch worth up to $2,500. "This is what we do, try to get the drug before 
it reaches the streets," said Maj. Nik Gentry of the Tennessee National 
Guard Counterdrug Division, one agency that is part of the task force. Also 
participating are the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the state 
Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the 
Drug Enforcement Administration, and local police and sheriff's 
departments. "Last year, Tennessee had the third-largest marijuana 
eradication effort in the country," Maj. Gentry said. "We have plenty of 
places to hide it. Or they think they can hide it." In Rhea County alone, 
the task force confiscated almost 10,000 plants, according to Rhea County 
Sheriff Leon Sneed. Almost a dozen searchers found the marijuana, which had 
a street value of up to $12 million, he added. Deputies arrested Chuck and 
Jesse Day for manufacturing marijuana, Sheriff Sneed said. Also, Darrell 
Murphy was arrested after investigators found 10 cannabis plants growing 
behind his home. Other marijuana plantings were found on Evensville, Shutin 
and Grandview mountains, officials said. Marijuana raised in Tennessee has 
a street value of more than $1 billion annually, government officials 
estimate. About 75 percent of it is grown in East Tennessee and on the 
Cumberland Plateau. Searchers use helicopters to fly over rural fields 
looking for a shade of green that is unique to marijuana plants. "When you 
know what you're looking for, it just stands out," one pilot said.
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