NCJ Number
140654
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 40 Issue: 6 Dated: (June 1992) Pages: 93-95
Date Published
1992
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Maine's Bureau of Interdepartmental Drug Enforcement (BIDE) conducts active efforts to eradicate marijuana cultivation and convict cultivators, because marijuana is probably the State's largest cash crop.
Abstract
BIDE was formed in 1988 when the United States Department of Justice offered to fund a pilot program under which a new drug agency would be formed and staffed by officers drawn on a more-or-less temporary basis from State, county, and municipal police forces. The officers use a helicopter and pilot on loan from the National Guard. Their eradication efforts are difficult, dirty, and dangerous. However, they have successfully arrested and prosecuted many offenders, and this year's crop was smaller than that of the year before. The program's goal is to make the acquisition, selling, buying, and using of illegal drugs as difficult as possible so that social and educational measures to prevent drug abuse can be effective. Photograph