Drought takes toll on marijuana crop
By ROGER ALFORD
Associated Press Writer
FRANKFORT, Ky. --
Sheriff Garrett Roberts hasn't needed a machete to cut any of the scrawny marijuana plants he has confiscated this year.
A severe drought that has parched corn and soybean fields across the Southeast has also scorched marijuana crops, leaving plants that should be 10 feet tall so puny that Roberts and his deputies simply pull them up.
"The plants we've seen have been anywhere from 2 inches to 5 1/2 feet tall," said Roberts, chief law enforcer in eastern Kentucky's Lawrence County.
Kentucky, one of the nation's top producers of marijuana, has seen a sharp decrease in production of the illegal crop this year.
State police confiscated nearly 190,000 fewer plants between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 than they did over the same period last year, and the ones they have collected yielded only about half the usual amount of the buds that growers sell as intoxicants.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ranked Kentucky second last year behind California in the number of plants eradicated. Kentucky State Police reported 488,502 plants, nearly $1 billion worth, confiscated between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 last year. Over the same period this year, troopers have found and cut 299,220 plants.
"I've walked into quite a few plots where the plants are just shriveled up and dead," said state police Lt. Ed Shemelya, head of Kentucky's marijuana-eradication program.
Shemelya said the dry weather has forced many growers to haul water to their marijuana plots, putting themselves at greater risk of being caught. So far, he said, more than 100 growers have been arrested this year.
"The weather has been our friend and the growers' worst nightmare this year," Shemelya said.
Nearly all of Kentucky is gripped by a severe drought, but in the mountains in the southeastern corner the drought is classified as extreme. Farmers have been working to salvage their corn, tobacco and soybean crops. Firefighters have been battling wildfires in parched woodlands. And Gov. Ernie Fletcher has asked the Bush administration for federal drought relief.
Neighboring states, including top marijuana producers Indiana and Tennessee, are also under drought conditions, limiting pot production.
Kristin Helm, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said marijuana production appears to be down by about 50 percent in her state.
"Even though the drought is affecting the marijuana crop, we're still out there looking for it," said Helm, whose agency is part of a task force charged with eradicating marijuana. "They have been finding it, but the crop is not as fruitful as it is in a summer when we get a lot of rain."
DEA agent Tony King, who heads the Louisville field office, said adverse weather has sharply cut into the region's street-level marijuana supplies.
"The information received from our confidential sources is that it's scarce," King said. "They're looking for quality marijuana and there's none to be found right now."
Marijuana sells for $100 to $500 an ounce on the streets, but King said he expects the price to increase.
"It's the old supply and demand rule," King said. "If there's no supply and the demand stays strong, the price is going to go up."
