Thousands of marijuana plants destroyed in early morning B.D.F. mission

Before dawn this morning, B.D.F. soldiers and a News Five crew headed north to an area called Riven Ridge, located south of Joe Goff’s Pine Ridge, at Mile thirty-four. The mission was to find the most accessible drug with the greatest appeal to youths and adults- marijuana. In addition to the police, the Belize Defense Force is mandated to win the war on drugs, so the B.D.F.’s Lieutenant Colonel Ganey Dortch conducted a fly-over in which his expert eye was able to identify the plants amongst all the green in the forest.   News Five’s Jose Sanchez and cameraman Chris Mangar were on the pre-dawn mission south of Carmelita Village.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting

At four in the morning after preparing their gear, a section of soldiers drove to an area on the Northern Highway where they suspected marijuana plantations would be located. After dismounting from the Forces truck, the disciplined soldiers quickly assembled into a formation to secure the perimeter from any possible threats.  A captain in the BDF with extensive training drew a map in the sand of the area that the men would follow. On the map, the captain identified open savannahs and two forest areas to the right that appeared to have marijuana fields along the fringes. The section of soldiers armed with M-16 rifles began their advance towards the target.  It is a slow grid by grid advance along a little used path because no one knows for sure what surprises could be lurking behind each bush.

Eventually the savannah disappeared where the grass grew wild. A ten gallon container was found with potable water inside.  The advanced group of soldiers disappeared amongst overgrown bush, where no vehicle has ever traveled.  The end of the famous Robert Frost poem aptly illustrated “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —I took the ‘one less traveled’ by, And that has made all the difference.”

Jose Sanchez

“We’ve been on the path for almost an hour now. Our guide has shown us this path to the right that he believes the planters have used to reach the marijuana plantation. However, the B.D.F. has confirmed that through this path we’re about to follow, they have found two of possibly four plantations. Even though we were heading towards the field, a B.D.F. soldier has just radioed our guide to tell him we can no longer stay on the main path. We must now diverge to a path on the left until it is safe.”

“We’ve been off our path for about fifteen minutes now. Our guide has informed us that they found a trigger guard, which means there was someone recently in the area with a weapon. And they are looking for him. They are sure the person was here because they found a pot of freshly cooked beans. So we have to wait here to wait h ere to see if they can locate perpetrator in the area.”

“We had been given the go ahead to proceed with our journey.  The B.D.F. soldiers did not find the planter but now we’re about to enter the area that we’ve been looking for since four this morning. Coming through this little patch of overgrowth, through the mud-here, opened up so here is  the plant cannabis sativa, young, fresh plants, it’s a long way from out here in the forest to getting the marijuana on the corner as the song says.”

In this first field the soldiers counted three hundred and thirty plants ranging from five and a half to six feet. They were almost ready for harvesting. But the soldiers carry out their duty and immediately begin to uproot the plants and gather them in a pile. The soldiers prefer to uproot the herb because when they cut it, there is still a possibility that the plant can grow again.  The astute soldiers find black plastic bags with marijuana dust, it is only smoked when the plant is scarce.

Jose Sanchez

“We’ve just left the first marijuana patch. Now we’re going through the jungle once again, onto the second patch which is a bit bigger. The last patch had about three hundred plants. This one, according to the soldiers, has a lot more.”

But on the way to the plantation we found the camp of the planter.  He had all the utensils needed to live in the area while he nurtured the plants. He had a strainer in a makeshift kitchen, a dog we named Colli Bud, a pot with freshly cooked red beans, syringes, a shopping list, a trigger guard for a gun,  two books, one called Lean Mean Thirteen and the other, Mankind’s Search for God.  Someone’s phone number 623-5944 was written on one of the books.  With the dog in tow, we moved onto the second field which had about 1280 plants with an average height of seven feet.

Marijuana is normally grown close to a water source because the young plants need to be hydrated.  Though there were no rivers close by, about a hundred yards away from camp, there was a well which the ganja farmer dug for water. The soldiers say that the plants would take about seven months to reach maturity.  These plants needed one more month before they would have been ready for harvesting. But those plants like the vegetables he grew would all go up in smoke. The soldiers undaunted by the heat of the day, continue to chop or uproot every single plant, and mount them in a pile for burning. While the ganja went up in smoke, and without taking a break, the soldiers began to dismantle the makeshift camp. The captain at the scene indicated that the ganja farmer invested money and six months of his life to nurture these plants. There is no rest for the soldiers because by tomorrow they would be looking to destroy more fields planted by ganja farmers.

Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.