Even as marijuana gains ground, some tightly enforce laws

Your tax dollars at work.

Even as marijuana gains ground, some tightly enforce laws

By Marc Fisher June 21

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Here in West Virginia’s northern panhandle, marijuana possession arrests soared by more than 2,000 percent in the first decade of this century. It was the biggest arrest-rate jump of any locality in the nation, although in a county of just 30,000, that amounts to only a few dozen cases. Raids like the one at {Ryan} Neeley’s house are a vital weapon, says Mark Simala, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who runs the task force from an unmarked office building in this struggling mill town — a place he calls “ground zero for the drug war” because traffickers use the area as a path from Pittsburgh, about 35 miles away, to cities in the Midwest.
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Hancock County Sheriff Ralph Fletcher, who runs a 26-man force, says that although “heroin is our new problem drug, it all starts with marijuana. The [arrest] numbers are up because we’re getting more efficient and there’s more use.” He has no intention of easing off on possession arrests.
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In a rickety trailer on the main street of Newell, the northernmost hamlet in West Virginia, Alice and Glenn Phillips have only a few photos and a raft of court documents to remind them of the 27 acres where they used to raise thoroughbred horses and, according to prosecutors and a judge, marijuana. ... Hancock County’s drug task force found more than 100 marijuana plants there in 2004 and took the couple’s land and horses. After years of legal battles, the sheriff’s office now uses the place as a shooting range. ... “They took everything we had,” says Glenn. He and Alice, 60, were convicted of cultivating marijuana. He did 2-1/2 years in prison; she served one year. Their son, who is 40, was arrested for possession of marijuana in a separate case.
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“When we get big money, it’s from marijuana,” Simala says. The task force keeps 80 percent of the cash it seizes and uses the money for its $1,250 monthly rent, equipment and vehicles and to fund undercover drug buys. “Without seized money, we wouldn’t be in business.”