[Sativa]

From the ground, the pine forests near the North Carolina line appear unremarkable - rows of trees that eventually will be chopped down to make way for a housing development.

But hidden among the trees, visible only from the air, police in recent weeks have found a bumper crop of what some experts consider South Carolina's most lucrative harvest: marijuana.

More than 30,000 marijuana plants have been seized in two July busts just south of Charlotte, North Carolina. So far this year, 38,000 plants have been confiscated. That's nearly three times the number confiscated across South Carolina in all of 2005, and nearly as many as were seized statewide last year.

State and federal authorities, and experts in marijuana policies, say that what appears to be a bumper crop of the illicit plants this year is due to two factors: bolder and more sophisticated marijuana growers producing more of the drug and law enforcement getting better at finding the grow operations.



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Source: WISTV
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Website: WIStv.com Columbia, SC: SC on track for record year in marijuana busts