THE DRUG WAR is out of control, and it’s causing a huge problem for hundreds of totally innocent rural property owners. A new dwarf hydroponic marijuana strain has hybridized with a local Ozark line — and that local strain had already been shrinking in size.

Outdoor marijuana growers have always returned to their pot patches to pull the males, but have typically missed the little runt males, often only a foot high, whose pollen then is blown on the wind, fertilizing other patches all over the Ozark woods.

Moreover, the hydroponic lines grown on artificial light are naturally well adapted to the lower light conditions under the forest canopy. So not only are the plants smaller, but they are also hidden by the trees.

As a result, aerial surveillance flights have been far less effective and cut way back. In recent years, choppers are only sent out if the authorities have received a tip. Tips, by the way, often result from illegal trespass.

When you add all this up, and look at the arrest records, you find the drug enforcement agencies are no longer doing the field work to identify and bust up drug rings, but use these cases only as a means to seize property. And with these new dwarf marijuana plants being less than three feet tall, they don’t stick up over a fence line so the land owners don’t even know they are there. Nevertheless, they stand in grave danger of losing their land and everything they own to asset seizure laws.

The new dwarf seed is so well adapted it will sprout if merely tossed out a car window while driving by. But in any case, if a drug dog smells it, or if someone wanted the property and planted the seed and then calls in the tip — the land owner is arrested.

This makes huge amounts of money for bondsmen and lawyers. A slick lawyer can often get a landowner off for a price (unless the judge has a friend who wants the land, in which case he can ignore the indications of trespass or lack of evidence that the owner knew the plants were there). But no matter what, every such case means more money for the lawyers.

My own particular medical marijuana test case is reported on at http://daybrown.org — but researching Arkansas records and online articles will show the researcher claims from several sources alleging that Judge Clawson, local lawyers, the 20th District drug task force, and the Van Buren County, Arkansas Sheriff’s Department have been using asset seizure to reward insiders and friends — and that somebody is reselling the seized marijuana. I have no doubt this sort of thing goes on in any rural area where these plants grow.

Whether you think marijuana should be legal or not, you do not want law enforcement corrupted in this way — or the property rights of citizens abused like this to enrich lawyers and friends of the courts. If what you want is marijuana to be kept away from kids, then the whole system needs to be re-evaluated.

What I’ve proposed online for years is to regulate marijuana the same as alcohol and tobacco: no sales to minors. Every sale should be recorded so that food stamps, welfare, or those on the dole can’t be using taxpayer money to get high. And, if there are problems with legal marijuana, then the family can sue the dealer to recover the cost of tutoring, therapy, job loss, drug rehab, counseling by the family’s clergy, or whatever. As it is now, the dealer’s money goes to bondsmen, his lawyer, and hidden payoffs to members of “law enforcement.”

Is that really what we want?

Legislatures won’t introduce reform because they see it will reduce the incomes of defense lawyers. No law is ever passed which cuts the incomes of lawyers, it is said. But it’s high time to try.

I’ve snail-mailed and emailed my senators, Blanche Lincoln and David Pryor, my congressman Vic Snyder, and Governor Beebee. All I ever get back is spam asking for campaign donations. My local state assemblyman, Robert Dale, did email back. Once. Saying he was interested. We’ll see. How far up the power structure does the corruption of the drug war go?