Law Enforcement Expects Smaller Marijuana Grows This Season

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By Chelsea Kopta

Story Published: Jul 20, 2010 at 6:15 PM PDT

WALLULA, Wash. -- The marijuana season starts the same every year: law enforcement spots the plants, pulls them and destroys them. But this year, many local sheriff's deputies told KEPR that they're expecting smaller grows.

In Benton County, Lt. Joe Lusignan said his office expects to find fewer than the 5,000 plants they harvested last year. While in Walla Walla County, Sheriff's deputies haven't been able to find any marijuana in the Wallula fiber farms, which is a hot spot every year.

This season's smaller expectations might be attributed to last year's record raids: local, state and federal agencies in the Mid-Columbia took down close to 200,000 pot plants. Walla Walla county alone netted 135,000, to make it the biggest bust in state history and altogether. It might have been enough to deter some growers from harvesting.

But the season is still early and local agencies are not out of the woods yet. The cooler Spring delayed the planting season so growers could still conceivably harvest in the fall. It's a lingering concern for some who live in Burbank.

"That's the part that gets me you know it's like, being a small area like this you wouldn't think there would be that problem," Darlene Bunger said. In fact, she believed some dope already found its way back to the community. "It's already in the junior high over here in Burbank."

But there's no doubt, last year's raids meant millions of dollars worth of drugs never hit the streets and local law enforcement plan to follow through on that this season.

Between the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the National Marijuana Initiative, KEPR Action News discovered the feds are giving out $20,000 this year to counties across the state to eradicate marijuana. But after tracking the money trail we found that when it's all doled out, it doesn't add up to much more than what they got last year.

**The video link did not post because of technical difficulties.

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