Mr. EVANS. Do you have any estimate of the value of a single plant of marihuana of that size?

Mr. WOOD. No, sir. We had different people estimate it. We did not precisely strip one plant down and have them weigh the leaves from any one particular plant.

Mr. EVANS. Well, testimony I received in Hawaii last year indicated that the weight of the plant or the finished product could be extrapolated into approximately $4,000 worth of marihuana for one large plant of good Hawaiian gold.

Mr. WOOD. Yes, sir, I would think so.

Mr. EVANS. $4,000?

Mr. WOOD. Probably inflation-it would be up a little bit more than that now.

Mr. EVANS. Probably so.

What kind of cooperation, if any-or have you called upon any of our State or Federal agencies in the drug enforcement field to assist you in individual cases or surveillance?

Mr. OWENS. The GBI has helped us when they can.

Mr. EVANS. What do you mean, "when they can"?

Mr. OWENS. The area around Dublin and Laurens County is not a primary area as far as volume. We understand that they have greater problems in the larger cities, Atlanta and Savannah, Brunswick.

When we deal with a problem in our city, we are talking about 2 pounds, 5 pounds, of these.

Mr. EVANS. Of what?

Mr. OWENS. Marihuana, et cetera.

Mr. EVANS. Is that primarily the drug of abuse that you deal with? Mr. OWENS. Yes, it is, in Dublin, with the police department.

Mr. EVANS. Do you have any cocaine or heroin?

Mr. OWENS. No, sir, not in any significant amount.

Mr. EVANS. Quaaludes?

Mr. OWENS. Pills are a different thing, but the drug of choice is marihuana in Dublin.

Mr. EVANS. Primarily imported or locally grown, or can you tell the difference? I can't.

Mr. OWENS. I can't, no, sir.

Mr. EVANS. Maybe we could get an expert up here to tell us the difference.

Mr. OWENS. But we understand that they have their agents working on cases involving a lot greater than what we have in Dublin. But still, if you know, every time we have a problem and it is a young person's life that is ruined, to us it is a problem. It is one of our neighbors; it is one of our friends, people we know.

Mr. EVANS. To be perfectly honest, is it occurring because of the laws we have attached to marihuana or is it occurring because of the marihuana or drug that has an adverse effect on the health or mind of the individual?

Mr. OWENS. My opinion is, Mr. Chairman, it is because the drug itself has an adverse effect on the judgment.

Mr. EVANS. Have you had instances in which you have seen the child adversely affected either by virtue of accidents or by virtue of loss of interest in school, or other things, as a result of heavy use of drugs?

Mr. OWENS. Yes, sir; we have on many occasions.

Mr. EVANS. What is the availability of the drugs in your schools in Laurens County area?

Mr. OWENS. We can go to any school in the city or in the county, I am sure, and obtain drugs or pills.

Mr. EVANS. Marihuana?

Mr. OWENS. Yes.

Mr. EVANS. Do you agree with that, Mr. Wood?

Mr. Wood. Yes, sir; very much so.

Mr. EVANS. What kind of local action is being taken, if any?

Mr. Wood. Last summer, last school term, school officials requested assistance from the prison system, with dogs, marihuana dogs, dogs

trained to sniff marihuana. And they were brought to a school in Laurens County. Mr. Ed Martins is the principal of the high school, West Laurens High. And he did it as a school project. Our enforcement were just to monitor or be a part of a learning situation as far as an intelligence situation, to us, maybe.

And this particular day, they gathered, I would say, probably 8 to 10 different packages of "nickel bags" or "dime bags" of marihuana from the school, junior high school. Within the last 3 weeks, we have had one occasion to work a case involving a junior high age. One individual sold or promised to pay another one a mere dollar for a joint, or one cigarette, and he didn't have but 80 cents, so they got into a fight at school. And we ended up out there.

And after determining what caused the fight, this was a problem in a junior high, we got marihuana there. And it appears to be a good grade of marihuana. It was not a lot of stems and seeds. It appeared to be manicured marihuana.

Mr. EVANS. Mr. Coughlin.

Mr. COUGHLIN. No further questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. EVANS. Well, I wanted to give you the opportunity, if you do have some additional questions. I don't think that I got any response regarding the Drug Enforcement Administration. Are you saying that you haven't had to call on the Drug Enforcement Administration?

Mr. Wood. Since 1974, I have seen one DEA agent. And it was recently, I believe, within the last couple or 3 months, in reference to an airplane that landed at Dublin Airport. We recovered eight bales of marihuana from this plane. We still have the plane in custody. And I believe the judge is the one who sentenced two individuals of Marietta who came down to pick up the marihuana. This is my first contact with the DEA, other than in various schools in Savannah and through the police academy that I went through.

Mr. EVANS. And in investigating the cases, have you ever had occasion to call upon DEA?

Mr. WOOD. No, sir: I have never called on DEA.

Wood.

Mr. EVANS. So we can't really get any testimony from you as to whether or not we have a proper amount of cooperation, because you have never had occasion to call on them.

Mr. WOOD. I have never had occasion to call on them.

Mr. EVANS. How about you, Mr. Owens?

Mr. OWENS. Yes, sir; I have called them.

Mr. EVANS. Could you give us some general background?

Mr. OWENS. When I called, they advised that they had less than six agents working in the State and that they just could not basically be bothered with the small amount that we had in Dublin and Laurens County; that they had their agents assigned wherever the big problem was.

To us, we had a big problem. But I have never to my knowledge met a DEA agent. I hear that one was in town, that Mr. Wood referred to and I tried to get to meet him while he was there, to see what one looked like, but he left before I was able to.

Mr. EVANS. Well, let me ask you this, as a practical matter: in recognizing what they told you, that in fact they do have a limited number of DEA agents in the State-of course, they have to depend on

Congress and the administration to determine the extent of a budget and the number of agents that they have. If you had 6 or 8 or 10 agents, if you had that limited number in the State of Georgia, would it be your policy to handle the size cases that your town has or not, as a practical matter?

Mr. OWENS. Yes, sir; we would attempt to handle the cases that we are presently handling between our agency and the sheriff's office. Mr. EVANS. What I am asking is if you were DEA, would you feel that you could competently get involved in the smaller type cases with the limited number of personnel.

Mr. OWENS. No, I wouldn't, but I would use the telephone. I could come by and introduce myself to the local department.

Mr. EVANS. Do you think DEA has any kind of communication or data bank of potential criminals or anything else that might be of assistance to local law enforcement in the drug enforcement field? Mr. OWENS. Yes, sir, I think they should have if they don't. I think that they would have areas of expertise that if I knew who to call and could get a response, that I could call and ask technical questions about an investigation.

Mr. EVANS. Would it be of assistance to you to have that information available and somebody available to respond to you?

Mr. EVANS. Yes, sir, it would, to have someone with just a working knowledge of the area, just be familiar with the area enough to assist us, and when we have a problem, we have a question.

Mr. EVANS. With that type of assistance, do you think you would be able to handle the local drug problem?

Mr. OWENS. It would help. Yes, sir. I don't know if we would completely handle it, but it would certainly help. We don't know what we are missing at this point. All we know is the tip of the iceberg.

For example, the plane that the sheriff's office caught, that case, that is one plane that was caught. We don't know how many planes came, landed, refueled, and left, that we don't know about.

Mr. EVANS. Is the sheriff flying around in that plane now?
Mr. WOOD. I think Mr. McClendon is taking flying lessons.
Mr. EVANS. Oh, has he?

There was another matter that was brought up by testimony this morning. And that was the use of the military in viewing planes and boats coming into the coast and passing this information along to local, State or Federal law enforcement. Do either of you see that as being a help to you in determining how many planes have come and taken off from Dublin and other areas in the rural area?

Mr. WOOD. Yes, sir, definitely so. Within our situation, the airport is located in the county. It is approximately 612, 7 miles from downtown Dublin. Laurens County is the third largest county in the State of Georgia, as landwise, area wise. And if we had some way of being able to gather intelligence, even with civilian airline pilots or civilianor just Saturday afternoon flyers, or people that have done a lot of small craft pleasure flying, if we had some way of getting to these people, the more eyes and ears and more involvement of the general public, military, the better chance we stand as law enforcement officers to combat any type crimes-drug or any other crime.