Drought Puts A Damper On Kentucky's Marijuana Crop

Posted: Fri 3:28 PM, Sep 07, 2007

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Law enforcement officials say a drought
has caused a sharp decrease in marijuana production this year.
The drought has left plants that should be 10 feet tall so puny
that Sheriff Garrett Roberts and his deputies in eastern Kentucky's
Lawrence County simply pull them up.
State police Lieutenant Ed Shemelya is head of Kentucky's
marijuana-eradication program. He says the weather has been the
growers' worst nightmare this year.
State police say they've confiscated nearly 190,000 fewer plants
than they did last year. And the ones they have collected yielded
only about half the usual amount of the buds that growers sell as
intoxicants.
DEA agent Tony King says he expects the price of the drug to
increase since the supply has decreased.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ranked Kentucky second
last year behind California in the number of illegal marijuana
plants eradicated.