Growing Problem in S.  Tier

LAW ENFORCEMENT TRIES TO ERADICATE POT CROPS

Painted Post - It's harvest season, not only for farmers but also for police who want to keep one Southern Tier cash crop off the market.

Marijuana eradication over the past month has resulted in the seizure of more than 600 cann-abis plants and at least four arrests in Steuben and Schuyler counties.

Police say there is more out there - much more.

"The whole state is ideal for growing marijuana," said Lt.  Tom Corrigan, a pilot who flies surveillance missions out of the state police aviation unit headquarters in Albany.

"I don't know the percentage of what's out there and what we're finding," he said.  "It's something like less than 20 percent of what's out there."

Growers of the state's most frequently abused illegal drug cultivate their crops anywhere they can, Corrigan said.  Some hide tiny clusters in sprawling farm fields.  Others might cover a remote hilltop with hundreds of plants in neat rows.  Some have even grown the drug in plastic tubs on rooftops, he said.

Police say airplanes and helicopters are among their best weapons to spot the drug before it gets on the market.

"You can actually see one plant if you are a trained observer," Corrigan said.  "What's more apparent than the plants themselves is the human presence.  People take pride in their patches.  They clear surrounding vegetation away to get maximum sunlight."

Steuben County Sheriff's deputies and state troopers working with the Community Narcotics Enforcement Team and other departments have caught a handful of growers recently.

In most cases, a state police helicopter based in Batavia aided in the searches, said state police Inv.  Mark Procopio of the Painted Post barracks.

Statewide, police last year eradicated more than 95,000 marijuana plants, according to statistics compiled by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

By all accounts, plenty is still making it to the streets.

With a harvest value estimated at $280 million, pot is the second most valuable cash crop in New York state behind hay, contends The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a pro-marijuana organization.

"New York consistently is in the top 10 for marijuana-producing states," said Allen St.  Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation in Washington, D.C.  "Just as New York wine, apples and maple sugar products are real good - same thing with this commodity."

A single mature marijuana plant is worth up to $2,000 when processed, packaged and sold, Corrigan said.

"The good stuff is domestically grown," he said.  "It's very refined."

Local police know they face an uphill battle in their annual game of cat and mouse with black market growers, Procopio said.

Arrests are few because pot growers go weeks without visiting their crops.  Moreover, many hide their plots on public land, Procopio said.  Police often choose to destroy what they find rather than take a chance on waiting for suspects to return to the fields, he said.

In practical terms, Procopio said eradication is "more of a deterrent" than a way to completely eliminate trafficking of the drug.

Police will continue searching for plots of marijuana until the second frost, which would kill any remaining cannabis for the season, Procopio said.

Without eradication, New York State would risk a "free for all" for pot growing, Corrigan said.

"We don't want that reputation," he said.