Eastern Drought Strips Cover From Illicit Crop

The drought that is troubling home gardeners, pool owners and golf course caretakers has been a boon to at least one group: police officers who hunt out marijuana plants.

With the shrubs and underbrush that generally conceal marijuana turning brown in the sweltering heat, carefully tended--and religiously watered--pot plants are sticking out like very sore, very green thumbs, law enforcement officials say.

Police in Maryland and Virginia regularly embark on airplane flights over private property and public parks in search of illicitly grown marijuana. Sgt. Kirk Holub, head of the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department’s narcotics division, said that from above the “emerald green” of marijuana stands out in fields turned barren from lack of rain.

“It’s made it easier to identify the crops. It’s just a lot harder to find cover,” Holub said. This week alone, officials in Maryland have seized more than 100 marijuana plants.

So far this year, about 2,500 marijuana plants have been found in Maryland, up from 2,200--or $4 million worth--at this time last year.

In Virginia, which hasn’t suffered the same rainfall deficits this summer as Maryland, officials have seized more than 7,500 plants, compared with about 10,000 in the same period last year, said 1st Sgt. J.C. Lewis, head of the Virginia State Police Marijuana Eradication Program.

The problem for marijuana farmers has to do with the stubby root structure of their crop. The University of Mississippi’s Mamhoud Elsohly, who researches marijuana for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the nation’s only legal provider of marijuana for research, said cannabis roots extend a scant 6 inches into the ground, unlike the roots of, say, cotton plants, which grow far deeper and require less water.

Narcotics detectives say the dilemma has forced some creative solutions. Some marijuana growers have moved their crops indoors. Others have resorted to growing the plants in pots put on the limbs of trees.

“They’re using different tactics . . . [and] are more discreet in their growing habits,” said Sgt. Harry L. McDaniel, head of the Maryland State Police Marijuana Eradication Unit.