DRUG TASK FORCE DESTROYS POT

This story out of Northeast Ohio concerning a law enforcement task force from several counties destroying 2,000 marijuana plants is interesting. It is a unique occurrence in this writer's opinion. Unique because the task force didn't discover the pot plants nor did the task force find the plants by investigations. It's also unique in that the owners of the property where the plants were growing are not suspected as drug traffickers.

The haul is considered large according to Geauga County Sheriff Daniel McClelland.

"We were just talking, and none of us can remember a seizure close to this," McClelland said. "To the best of my knowledge, in the 28 years I've been in the business, this is the biggest." Thursday, the task force found and "harvested" more than 2,000 plants, with an estimated street value of $1,000 apiece, placing Wednesday's haul in the $2 million neighborhood.

As to the way the task force "found" the marijuana plants, Sheriff McClelland stated:

"Many of these fields have been located through aerial surveys by concerned citizens, . . ."

So the local citizens suspected that something fishy was in their neighborhood and they confirmed it by conducting their own aerial surveys. Subsequently, the authorities were notified and commenced removal of the plants and followup investigation to find the criminals. Since the pot plants were found in the middle of corn fields, one would naturally suspect the owner of the farm, but that is not the case in the current investigation.

. . . officials agreed that it is unlikely the farmers who own the hundreds of acres victimized by such tactics have any involvement in the marijuana cultivation themselves.

So, there you have it. In the late of night, dope growers are going out into the middle of farmers' corn fields and planting pot.