I am no advocate of marijuana use or growth, however, I wanna know something…
How do the law enforcement agencies spot marijuana plants from helicopters? I’m not talking about deliberate crops, which would be blatantly obvious, but random naturally occuring plants growing in brushy areas in the country? I don’t see how they can identify cannibas (sp?) from all of the other funky weeds growing about, at any altitude? I live in Indiana, and usualy hear on the news of the occasional flyby over country roads, where a wild crop of the stuff had been discovered and destroyed. Seems like looking for a needle in a haystack to me.
Allegedly, (not that I would have any first hand knowledge) the plants look different from the air. The color is remarkably different than the surrounding flora. Yes, it is all green, but a very different shade. Much brighter than everything else. The shape of the plant also makes it rather easy to identify.
Usually, in rural areas, hemp grows along fencelines and is fairly easy to spot. Why they waste the resources to destroy this, I have no idea. About the only thing that stuff is good for is making rope.
Well, I don’t know but I’m sure it’s very difficult, and I’m sure most of these go undiscovered. Still, the marijuana plant has a very distinct looking leaf and can grow to be very full and bushy, so it certainly does seem possible that a low flying helicoptor could spot suspicious looking plants, then zero in with binoculars or something. Heck, I would be surprised if, technology being the way it is today, they had some type of radar-like computer that scans a general area and is programmed to record data corresponding to a leaf pattern inputted (is that a word?) by a programmer.