The peak month for government marijuana eradication efforts in North Carolina is August. The Marijuana Found In Six Western North Carolina Counties this year was minimal. It took three federal and three state agencies, law enforcement specialist, helicopter pilots and National Guard to eradicate 815 plants.
Law enforcement agencies using fly-over operations…
The August raids netted 815 plants In Western North Carolina… Three people face trafficking charges.
Federal agents seize about 4,000 pounds of the finished product a year in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Authorities so far this year seized 45,000 plants statewide, which the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation says is on pace with last year’s rate.
“It is ongoing,” said Haywood County Sheriff Bobby Suttles…we are going to be looking for it.”
Eradication teams typically work in August at the end of the growing season when plants are tall and easier to spot from the air.
Deputies and police work with helicopter pilots from the N.C. National Guard and the N.C. Highway Patrol to spot and destroy patches. SBI agents and the U.S. Forest Service also join the effort.
Haywood County started at the county fairgrounds, where deputies and federal police went over target areas with Highway Patrol pilots.
When the helicopter took flight, deputies and U.S. Forest Service police rode in a caravan to the first area in a remote section off White Oak Road.
The team that day hit several more spots with no luck. …The Highway Patrol aviation unit averages about 400 hours a year on flights searching for marijuana. Since 2007, it has helped eradicate 74,151 plants.
The National Guard averages 2,000 hours in the air each year helping state authorities find pot.
Some communities are tired of the Drug War and Stopped Taking DEA Money for eradication. https://cannabistv.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/drug-war-funds-cut-digging-our-way-out-of-prohibition/
Haywood County deputies seized 431 plants from patches in the White Oak and Fines Creek communities and off Rabbit Skin Road in the first of two fly-overs.
Some of the plants were 10 feet tall and had four-inch buds, the part marijuana users smoke.
“It was a success,” said narcotics detective Mark Mease. “we had good air support.” Authorities said they found 20 plants in a garden . A search of the property the next day uncovered an indoor growing operation in a shed.
Sometimes the operations just aren’t productive.
A fly-over in Transylvania County turned up nothing last month and a brief outing in Jackson County uncovered just one plant. Investigators found nothing in Swain County.
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Blog Posted by Ray Pague