All their dreams go up in smoke

Forest Preserve Police torch 3K marijuana plants

By Jason Maholy

An estimated 3,000 pounds of pot were burned last week in Pioneer Woods near Palos Hills, and that was just what police set ablaze during what has become an annual tradition here in the southwest suburbs — the annual torching of cannabis plants found growing in the Cook County Forest Preserves.

The pile of about 3,000 cannabis plants, which took illicit farmers all summer to grow, went up in smoke in about 10 minutes last Friday at Pioneer Woods, off of 107th Street about 1 mile west of LaGrange Road in unincorporated Palos Township. Thick black smoke and the smell of burning diesel fuel and uncured marijuana filled the air as ashes fell around the forest preserve officials and members of the press there for the big burn.

Cook County Forest Preserve Police Chief Richard Waszak said the plants — some between 12 and 14 feet tall, according to the officers who gathered them — were worth approximately $3 million. The haul was just a portion of what Forest Preserve police officers and agents form the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) found growing on Forest Preserve District land this summer; and far less than the 70,000 plants destroyed last year, he said.

“These are professional operations,” Waszak said of the cannabis- growing sites on Cook County Forest Preserve District property. “This is high-quality marijuana, not ditch weed that’s growing out in the woods.

“It’s a cash crop, no doubt about it. We can compare it to farming.”

With 68,000 acres of forest preserves, the Forest Preserve Police and DEA depend on forest preserve maintenance workers and citizens to inform them about possible cannabis growing sites on the district’s land, Waszak said.

“It’s very difficult for us to be everywhere,” he said. “Most of this stuff is growing in areas people wouldn’t go.

“Most of [the cannabis found] comes from tips. We go out and check it out to see if it’s marijuana or not. We can’t do it alone and we know this. It’s difficult because of the topography.”

Law enforcement officers scouting the forest preserves for grow sites look for telltale signs such as discarded Styrofoam cups, fertilizer bags and milk jugs, Waszak said. Growers use the cups to start the plants as seedlings, then transplant the young plants to grow sites in the forest preserves, he explained. Most sites are close to water sources and in areas that receive sunlight nearly all day, he added.

“People scout out here in the woods to plot where they’re going to put it,” Waszak said. “The reason they plant on public lands is because if they’re caught they don’t lose their property.”

A person caught growing cannabis on his property can lose his land, house, car and other possessions.

The Forest Preserve Police, meanwhile, begin surveillance of potential grow sites at the end of each summer, Waszak said.

“We start right now,” he said.

This is part of the September 4, 2008 online edition of The Reporter.

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