Ashland’s Police officers Lisa Evans, left, Malcus Williams, center, and David Day gather marijuana plants and growing lamps at the residence after responding to a domestic call Sunday in Ashland. Photos by Orville Hector | Daily Tidings

Blue shield offers green thumb

Marijuana bust leads to APD plant care

By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings

Police work in Ashland takes all sorts of different skills. Sometimes it takes a tough stand against crime and other times, such as this morning, it takes a green thumb.

After finding a marijuana grow operation on Sunday afternoon, Ashland police say they are “taking care of” 62 pot plants while they determine if the grower has a legal right to raise medicinal marijuana.

“I brought my watering can in this morning,” Officer David Day said as he stood over the immature plants in the evidence room of the Ashland police station this morning. “They were a little dry when we picked them up so I’ll give them a drink this morning.”

Ashland’s Police officers gather about 62 marijuana plants along with growing lamps after responding to a domestic call Sunday.

The plants were found, according to police reports, when officers responded to a report of trespass on Van Ness Avenue. While there, they discovered the plants, ranging in size from 1-inch to several feet high, growing indoors under a grow light.

Joseph Kehoe, who was arrested for domestic assault in relation to the trespass complaint, told police he is a medicinal marijuana care-giver with a legal right to grow pot. The documentation he provided police on Sunday, at the time of his arrest on other charges, expired in 2003.

Officer Day said APD would know by today if Kehoe’s is a legal care-provider by checking state records. Day said Kehoe would need a legal right to provide medicinal marijuana for three people in order to legally grow 62 plants.

“If he can,” Day said, “we’ll either give him some or all of them back.”

Until that determination is made, Day said, the plants are being kept under neon lights in the back of the APD evidence room.

“It’s not as strong as the grow light,” he said. “But they should be fine in here.”

If the crop turn out to be illegal, Ashland police will “pluck them” from their plastic containers and ship the uprooted plants to an incinerator facility in either Coos Bay or Salem.

“Nothing is disposed of locally,” Day said.

Illegal marijuana plants, as is the case with other illegal narcotics, are shipped to one of two Department of Environmental Quality-sanctioned “filtered incinerators” where the contraband can be disposed of without giving off any fumes.

Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x. 226 or bplain@dailytidings.com.

.