Annual pot-quashing raids net 1,000-plus plants here

The annual state- and federal-assisted, helicopter-buzzing marijuana eradication campaign has come and gone in Athens County, with about 1,000 to 1,100 pot plants seized, according to Sheriff Pat Kelly.

"We had two days of flying, and they finished up a couple days ago," Kelly reported Friday.

On Aug. 17, the Ohio Attorney General's office announced the results of the first four weeks of its annual outdoor statewide marijuana eradication effort.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCII) leads the program during the summer months, according to a news release, "relying heavily on tools such as helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, and partnerships with local county sheriff's offices and other law enforcement agencies around the state."

Starting in July, according to AG Richard Cordray, BCII agents began flying over dozens of Ohio counties, and at the time of the release, had seized more than 20,000 plants growing illegally statewide.

The plants were often growing on someone's private land "without the landowner's knowledge," Cordray added.

Major seizures, according to the release, included more than 650 plans in one day in Williams County; 1,000 plants in Meigs County (which as of last year was the state's leader in number of plants seized since 2001); more than 2,500 in Licking County; and 7,900 in one day in Muskingum County.

Typically, most of the pot plants found and uprooted by BCII annually are in southeastern Ohio counties.

The Muskingum County seizures, according to the AG, included one outdoor operation with 6,200 plants "an example of those in which international growers camp out among their plants, often armed," the release said.

BCII, it adds, "began to discover these types of operations in 2007 but has found no more than two each summer. The Muskingum operation and one discovered in Licking County indicate this type of operation is becoming more common."

In addition to BCII, agencies helping out on the pot eradication campaign include the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Border Patrol; the Ohio Investigative Unit; the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction; as well as county sheriffs and area drug task forces.

In Athens County, investigators have found numerous small stands of pot plants, of no more than around 100 or so plants, in places including Guysville and York Township, Sheriff Kelly said.

"These were smaller fields," he reported. "We got nothing like 500 (plants) together."

In some cases, he said, local authorities have had some prior knowledge of possible grow operations, which they acted on during the two days of the marijuana eradication campaign in Athens County. Most of the plants found during those two days, however, he said, were spotted first from the air.

"We've had some spots where we knew who was growing, but for the most part, this was just flying over the county," he said.

No charges had been filed in connection with any of the seizures as of Friday, though Kelly said a few are probably pending.

"I think there are two, maybe three (criminal) cases that may develop out of this," he said. He noted, however, that much of the marijuana in the county has been found growing in remote spots on public land such as the Wayne National Forest.

Much of the drug-interdiction energy of the Athens County Sheriff's office in the last couple of years has been directed away from marijuana and toward heroin and synthetic opiates, the use of which has surged locally.