Choppers still spy out region's marijuana crop every summer

Though the Athens County Sheriff's Office is putting most of its drug-interdiction energy into stopping the flow of heroin and other dangerous opiates, the annual summer airborne efforts to find outdoor marijuana fields in Athens and surrounding counties haven't gone away.

Funded by a steadily increasing stream of federal money, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation's Marijuana Eradication Unit continues to find and uproot pot plants around the state "“ most of them located in southeast or south-central Ohio.

According to the BCI, Meigs County leads the list of Ohio counties for the number of marijuana plants seized since 2001, with 43,229. Athens County is sixth on the list, with 12,324. Gallia, Scioto, Vinton, Perry, Pickaway, Pike and Jackson are also in the top 10.

The only Ohio county in the top 10 outside southern Ohio is number nine, Ashtabula, located in the northeast corner of the state.

Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly said Monday that while harder drugs are a bigger concern for him than marijuana at the moment, the county's involvement in airborne pot interdictions hasn't ended.

"I'm concentrating on the heroin overdoses, and the Oxycontin," Kelly said. "That doesn't meant that we're not concentrating on marijuana, but it gets less of our attention than the harder drugs, the drugs that are killing kids here in Athens County."

He said that with help from BCI and other agencies, county law enforcement has taken part in two airborne search-and-seizure operations this summer, looking for marijuana fields.

In the most recent county flyover, Kelly said, he believes 151 plants were found and seized.

According to information from BCI, the agency's pot eradication program is funded by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program. The amount of federal money coming into the state for marijuana eradication has climbed steadily in past years, from $358,860 in 2005, to $480,000 this year.

About 80 percent of the money pays for helicopter time, which can cost between $3,200 and $5,000 for an eight-hour flight day, according to BCI.

After a drop-off from 2005 to 2006, the numbers of plants seized statewide over the next three years rose steadily, from 33,265 in 2006 to 40,158 in 2008. This last number put Ohio 10th among U.S. states for outdoor marijuana plants eradicated by police, BCI reported.

"The southeastern portion of Ohio routinely contains the largest concentration of outdoor marijuana plants seized," the release added, with this region accounting for 69 percent of the plants seized last year (27,749 out of 40,158).

According to BCI, there was a big airborne search operation in Meigs County Aug. 27, in which officers found 538 plants, of which 203 came from a single property.