Helicopters end 10th flying season

Ten years after the Warren County Sheriff’s Department began using its eye in the sky, marijuana has almost disappeared from the Warren County landscape as cultivators of what was once one of the Nursery Capital’s biggest cash crop have moved their growing operations elsewhere.

‘We aren’t finding much of anything anymore, and what we are finding isn’t in big patches like we used to see,’ said Sheriff Jackie Matheny of the 10th flying season headed by Lt. Col. John Black. ‘Now we can fly just outside the county line and find a whole bunch, and that tells me growers have moved their operations outside the county because of our flying.’

The flying missions have been ongoing since the federal government gave Warren County two surplus helicopters in 1997 through a government program aimed at putting military hardware into the hands of local jurisdictions to help fight the war on drugs. Black has served as the pilot since the acquisition, joined by chief deputy Danice Taylor and other members of the marijuana eradication team.

Marijuana finds were prevalent for several years with over 6,000 plants seized during 2002 and over 4,000 in 2001, many coming from the sparsely populated Harrison Ferry Mountain region which has seen an upsurge in residents and development in the past few years.

‘We used to find big patches, with hundreds, maybe thousands of plants,’ Matheny said. ‘But, nowadays, we aren’t seeing these big fields. Instead, what we are seeing is a few plants here and few plants there. Nothing on the big scale as before.’

Matheny said the helicopter and officers are sometimes hired by surrounding counties to have the Warren County team make periodic sweeps ‘ missions which usually find a wealth of marijuana.

‘It’s still being grown, it’s just not as open and I think a lot of it is being moved to neighboring counties,’ Matheny said.

As for the disappearance of what used to be one of the county’s most lucrative crops, Matheny said the flying missions scared off marijuana farmers.

‘It’s fairly obvious that they knew they’d get caught with all the flying we were doing,’ Matheny said. ‘Over the years we’ve seized many millions of dollars worth of marijuana and I think that sent a powerful message not to be growing dope in Warren County.’

In addition to continued flying missions, which generally slow around fair time, the helicopters are also used for a variety of missions such as search and rescue, fugitive location and even surveillance.