Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 27, 1994                   TAG: 9410050002
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ALVAH M. HENLEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MARIJUANA IS STILL A BIG, PROFITABLE - AND ILLEGAL - BUSINESS

You state that ``marijuana, in some parts of southern Virginia, has supplanted moonshining as a source of recreational and entrepreneurial rebellion.'' This describes growers as a group of relatively innocent rebels, thumbing their nose at the establishment. In fact, marijuana is very big business, generating huge profits. The growers are criminals, engaged in an illegal enterprise for the purpose of making money. If it didn't pay very well, they wouldn't bother. A mature marijuana plant products approximately two pounds of manicured marijuana. Depending on its potency, each pound will sell for up to $2,000. Profits motivate growers, nothing more.

As for your statement that the ``weed's farmers ... aren't hardened dealer-types toting machine guns,'' be advised that when growers are arrested, it's rare when significant numbers of weapons aren't also seized. When growers tend their patches, they're frequently armed and will use weapons to ward off unwanted visitors.

It's true that most marijuana is grown in small plots. This is done to make it more difficult for law enforcement to find the fields. Large marijuana fields used to be common; however eradication efforts educated growers to split the plots up in hopes that, even if law enforcement finds some of the fields, enough will go undiscovered to allow large profits.

Also, most growers don't utilize their own land. They plant their crop in national and state forests, on property owned by innocent people. This again is to impede law enforcement's attempts to arrest the grower. The alleged nonviolent growers often booby-trap their plots with ``pungi stakes,'' trip wires and sometimes explosives to protect the plot from law enforcement, thieves and animals. This can be very dangerous to the unsuspecting hiker in a national forest, or a farmer on his own land who stumbles across one of these plots. Growers also clear land, and in an attempt to maximize profits, overuse fertilizers and insecticides, doing damage to the environment.

I agree that some sense of priorities is relevant. I assure you that nowhere near the effort is expended on marijuana investigations and eradication as is expended on heroin, cocaine and other drugs. To state, however, that the eradication program and the publicity generated is a ``publicity splash,'' which is used to ``compensate for losing the war against far more dangerous heroin and cocaine in city after city,'' does a grave injustice to law-enforcement personnel throughout the country who risk their lives to enforce this country's laws.

If the war on drugs is being lost, it's due to the cavalier attitudes of many citizens and the media in this country who tolerate drug abuse. It seems to me that the media's efforts could be better spent mounting an education campaign in an attempt to stop drug abuse, instead of criticizing law enforcement for doing its job.

Marijuana is big business and generates huge profits. Without buyers, the business folds. We, as citizens, allow these conditions to continue.

Alvah M. Henley is resident agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice, in Roanoke.