Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 22, 1993 TAG: 9303230006
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
POT SEIZURES DOUBLED IN '92
The numbers are in, and what a difference a year makes - when it comes to finding marijuana plants, the state police say.In 1992, the agency and its law enforcement allies destroyed more than 62,000 marijuana plants statewide, twice the number found in 1991. The street value of the destroyed plants was estimated at almost $68 million.
The top five counties for marijuana eradication - all gathered in the southern midsection of Virginia - netted almost as many plants as were found statewide a year earlier.
"You can just about count on it," said Special Agent Roger Rector, in terms of finding the big pot crops in the same areas year after year. State police search for the crops generally from May to September, but decline to release exact schedules so as not to unduly alert the growers.
Although Rector couldn't name a specific reason for the increase in discovered pot plants, he said, "we'd like to think we're doing a better job."
Down in Patrick County - where more than five times as much pot was found in 1992 as in 1991 - Sheriff Jay Gregory attributed the large numbers to the mountainous, sparsely populated region.
"You can grow an awful lot of marijuana up in the mountains where very few people ever go," he said.
The seizures were enough to prompt a New York radio live talk show to give him a call last summer, he said. The station wanted to know just exactly what a sheriff's department did with all that pot.
But after calling Gregory at 7 a.m. for what would turn out to be a three-minute interview, the station seemed a tad bit disinterested in the whole thing. They put him on hold for several minutes while he heard them in the background talking to somebody live from Wimbledon, England.
That's where they play tennis - on a different kind of grass.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***