Missouri Highway Patrol Destroys 7,000 Pot Plants, Does State's Stoners A Favor

Local potheads ought to compose a thank-you letter to Missouri Highway Patrol Troop E. Since the beginning of the summer, the unit's marijuana eradication program has destroyed more than 7,000 pot plants in Missouri's boot heel region.

While destroying 7,000 plants is normally enough to make a stoner weep bong water, in this case the cops were actually doing everyone a favor by keeping sub-par schwag out of the local supply

According to an Associated Press article in today's Post-Dispatch, the troopers were busy wasting their time and money busting growers that were cultivating that lowly variety of cannabis known as ditch weed.

Trooper B.R. Arnold told the Poplar Bluff Daily American Republic that the haul included 38 plants found growing in a ditch near the St. Francis River near Campbell. The patrol set up cameras and videotaped a suspect tending to the plants. When authorities went to his home, they found more marijuana there.

All told, 10 people are facing 18 felony charges related to marijuana in the area of the state covered by the patrol's Troop E.

For those unfamiliar with the term "ditch weed," allow Urban Dictionary to enlighten you...

Remarkably, the DEA has admitted in the past that 98 percent of all pot plants seized or destroyed in the United States fall under the category of feral hemp aka ditch weed. Statistics from 2005 show that Missouri had the second most (behind only Indiana) ditch weed plants eradicated, a whopping 4.5 million, while not even cracking the top five in cultivated marijuana plants confiscated or destroyed.