Despite statewide trends, law enforcement in Trumbull, Mahoning and Ashtabula counties say they are recovering fewer marijuana plants this summer that are being grown outside.
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced this week that the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation has seized more than 50,000 marijuana plants in six weeks this summer - part of BCI's Outdoor Marijuana Eradication program - which is more than the 48,051 seized during all of 2009's program.
But Trumbull County Sheriff's deputy Lt. Jeff Orr, who heads the Trumbull Ashtabula Group drug task force, and Youngstown police Lt. Robin Lees, who is in charge of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force, said the outdoor numbers for 2010 are below what they usually seize.
Orr said that in an operation last week with an Ohio Highway Patrol helicopter, TAG seized 475 plants in Ashtabula County and 155 in Trumbull County. Most of the Ashtabula seizures were in the county's southern portion, while most of the activity in Trumbull was in the north, Orr said.
In Mahoning County, Lees said 126 plants were seized, mostly in Green and Springfield townships. Last year, he said, about 1,000 plants were seized.
Lees attributes the decrease in seizures to an increase in indoor marijuana production, while Orr said growers are becoming more sophisticated in hiding their plants. He also said indoor grow operations are becoming more popular in the TAG area.
Lees said in a typical outdoor grow operation, plants are scattered in a field of other crops, usually a small number. He said GPS devices and aircraft are needed to spot the plants, but acknowledged there are probably some that are escaping notice.
''Undoubtedly, we're missing some,'' Lees said.
Orr said in an indoor grow operation, the quality of marijuana is generally better than that grown outdoors, plus the plants can be grown all year long as long as the proper equipment is on hand.
Most of the plants seized in Ashtabula were not seized in a farmer's field but close to a property. Orr said charges are expected to be filed against nine people in Ashtabula in connection with the plants seized there. He said at one of the locations, two firearms that were reported stolen in a burglary in Kinsman also were recovered.
No charges for the plants seized in Trumbull County will be filed because officers cannot determine who those plants belong to, Orr said.
If no charges are filed, TAG usually seeks an order from a judge to destroy the plants, he said.
Cordray's office said there have been some large seizures in other parts of the state over the last two weeks of August, including 500 plants in Washington County, 374 plants in Lorain County and 238 plants in Knox County.