The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

DEPUTY Police Commissioner Quinn McCartney yesterday warned persons cultivating drugs locally or on the family islands that police will be relentless in their search to uncover hidden narcotics and prosecute those responsible.

His comments came after a $40 million drug discovery in a pine forest on the northern side of the Grand Bahama Highway on Friday.

He said: "We will certainly find them. We don't intend to allow the production of marijuana to be a major issue in our country. We will continue to be vigilant and we will certainly step up our efforts to ensure that there aren't anymore fields out there. We will find them in very short order."

When police made the discovery they reported that 30 marijuana fields contained thousands of plants ranging in size. A police source confirmed that the "marijuana garden" had been thriving for several months.

Police said the fields averaged a size of 50 feet by 50 feet.

While a list of persons responsible for the plants have been narrowed down, the police source said that no one had been taken into custody.

Grand Bahama, Mr McCartney said, with its thousands of miles of forest, has proved to be a challenge for law enforcement in terms of marijuana cultivation over the years.

He said: "Grand Bahama is a very large land mass, 96 miles from East to West and about 12 miles from North to South, so its a very large island. Historically, we've had some challenges in terms of cultivation of marijuana.

"I know certainly when I was there in my tenure as Senior Assistant Commissioner we found a field out in East End."

Mr McCartney said over the years police have refocused their approach on the growth of plants used as narcotics in the Bahamas.

"We've unfortunately seen an increasing number of local marijuana fields or a cultivation of marijuana locally. Years gone by, most of the marijuana imported to our streets was imported from countries to the south, but now we are seeing that a lot of persons are now cultivating marijuana locally."

"That's a cause for concern and certainly over the last 10 or 15 years we've shifted our emphasis to look at this local cultivation of marijuana. Its not just an import issue, its a local producing issue that we have."

Mr McCartney urged the public to continue to help police as they investigate.