Harvest time

Time for our annual waste of the taxpayer's money on marijuana eradication roundups.

It's been a bumper year in Humboldt.

West Virginia spent an entire shift of man hours to just burn the results of their haul. I notice they just valued it at millions without giving actual weight or plant numbers. You can guess the expense of finding it though.

Tupper led an eradication detachment made up of troopers from the Welch and Princeton detachments as well as conservation officers of the state Division of Natural Resources and a helicopter pilot from the West Virginia National Guard who piloted a RAID (Reconnaissance and Aerial Interdiction Detail) helicopter on the two-day mission.

Notice the blurring of the military on a domestic mission. They shouldn't be allowed to use the Guard for routine law enforcement, but they weakened the Posse Comitatus protections specifically for drugs. Now it looks like they will use the precedent to destroy them completely under the war on terror. But I digress.

Pick for colossal waste of the week goes to Jefferson County, WA.

Sheriff's officials discovered a 19-plant marijuana grow operation in the Rice Lake area north of Quilcene, while conducting a helicopter flyover looking for plants on Thursday.

I expect they had a pretty big crew for that bust as well and spent thousands of tax dollars for a day of fun in the copter. Here's the nefarious criminal they bagged.

The man was not arrested, Perry said, because he was willing to cooperate with deputies and because he is not a flight risk.

"We have discretion in doing that. He cooperated with us, and it wasn't a huge grow operation," Perry said.

"It's a good, clean case," Perry said. "He had marijuana, he was growing, and he'll be charged for it, I'm sure.

In other words, he is a law abiding citizen who smokes pot and grew a few plants so he doesn't have to deal in illegal transactions.

Perry said the property owner told deputies he was growing the plants solely for personal use. Perry said the man will likely face charges of manufacturing narcotics, a class "C" felony punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

Think about that. There is something decidely uncivilized about a system that would exact such a severe penalty against a guy the cops didn't think they needed to arrest.