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- NATION, Page 35American NotesNORTH CAROLINAPot Watch in Tobaccoland
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- With an estimated value of $1.5 billion annually, marijuana
- has surpassed tobacco as North Carolina's top cash crop. In an
- attempt to slow down the harvest, some landowners in the Tar
- Heel State last week began posting signs with the slogan
- MARIJUANA WATCH near the remote fields where pot is grown. The
- idea is to show that the owners are cooperating with lawmen,
- thereby avoiding possible seizure of their property if
- marijuana is found on it.
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- Though many landowners are enthusiastic about the scheme,
- the American Civil Liberties Union is concerned that it could
- undermine the Bill of Rights. A.C.L.U. lawyer William Simpson
- is worried about citizens' abandoning their constitutional
- protections in their haste to join the war on drugs. Says
- Simpson: "What are politicians going to tell people when the
- Constitution is gone and we still have a drug problem?"
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