DNR Using Surveillance Flights To Spot Marijuana Grows

[robinblue]

WI is cutting school budgets and many social programs and then spends money on this!


DNR Using Surveillance Flights To Spot Marijuana Grows
Wardens Looking For Grows On Public Lands

Updated: 8:35 pm CDT May 14, 2010
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MADISON, Wis. -- The state Department of Natural Resources is fighting marijuana growing operations by using surveillance flights.

The DNR said growing operations outside and on public land are becoming more common, and they want hikers, anglers and hunters to be on the lookout.
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Across the state, flight crews armed with only a camera are scanning public land, WISC-TV reported.

"These areas have very few clearings, so if you find a big clearing, it's kind of a red flag; it makes you wonder what's going on," said Dieckhoff.

While flying over Dane County Friday morning, crews noted two spots that are worth a follow-up, they said.

"It could be somebody's food plots for hunting or viewing purposes, but something similar to that is what we've been locating," said Dieckhoff.

Suspicious activity is then passed onto other agencies, including the Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force.

"It's a matter of how we want to approach it. Do we want to take it, just dismantle it and pull the plants, or do we want to set up cameras and some covert surveillance?" said Dane County Sheriff's Sgt. Gordie Dish.

The DNR said the flights play a key role in stopping crime and keeping state land safe.

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Using flights might be the best way to cover large chunks of land, but it's not cheap, WISC-TV reported.......................

[medeak]

1. warning to pot growers

rancher friend in CA who was well known pro legalizing marijuana and grower was murdered by Mexican mafia. (according to FBI) His usually unkempt truck was spit clean and body never found. 2 weeks after his wedding...so very sad.

[Scuba]

2. Black 4th graders.......

...in Milwaukee scored the worst of any in the nation on standardized reading tests. But we have money for helicopters to find pot growers? What's wrong with us?

[TheMightyFavog]

6. WI DNR has no choppers

Just a few Cessnas, IIRC. Usually they use them to look for poachers, wildfire spotting in really bad fire danger conditions, wildlife censuses and other assorted research projects, and in some cases transport of DNR officials.

[MadHound]

3. Hey, Wisconsin, welcome to the latest way to waste your tax dollars

We had these summer long dope hunting flights carried out by the Highway Patrol in my state for over ten years, at the cost of five million plus per year.

Of course given that Missouri was the top hemp growing state in the country back in the day, and there is lots of wild hemp that grows like, well, a weed, this effort by the Highway Patrol was bound to end badly.

After over ten years of flying, and sixty million plus dollars wasted, the HP's record on finding real, live dope was abysmal. Over 98 percent of what they busted was simply hemp gone wild. Sixty million dollars to bust a bunch of ditch weed. The governor finally had the good sense to stop this stupidity in '03.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. The price of bud is also dropping apparently

Per NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126806429

Its starting to have impacts to the Emerald Triangle here in California

[Scuba]

7. I wish.

[MH1]

5. The cost of criminalizing a native plant

Given the illegal status of marijuana cultivation, DNR has some rationale for doing this. Let's say you and I are hiking in the backcountry and come along someone's plot. Our timing just happens to be fatally bad and there is something about the way we look that causes the plot owner to decide he'd better not let us get away to tell what we saw.

Basically that kind of story is the justification for this. I don't know how valid it is, but I think I've seen one or two stories where a backcountry murder was blamed on pot. (Maybe planted by the people making money off the flight contracts?)

My point being if people could grow pot legally all this goes away, but as long as it is illegal, the state will be spending tax $ protecting its citizens from the criminals it created.

[roody]

8. Decriminalizing pot is an obvious solution.

[Union Yes]

9. Where does money for this shit come from? Yet, we can't find funding to extend unemployment benes.

:grr: