Aug. 29--MEIGS COUNTY, Ohio -- The caravan of pickups rolled down the road, their tires kicking up so much dust that it swallowed the mailboxes and the roadside brush.

The lawmen swarmed onto the driveway of an old, isolated farmhouse. They fired up their ATVs.

In a matter of minutes, they were ready to go after the marijuana plants that had been spotted by a state agent in a helicopter buzzing the treetops. They now knew where the marijuana was; getting to it was another matter.

State Highway Patrol Sgt. Dick Meadows and Capt. Paul Pride went down a gully, crossed a creek and rode up a steep hill. When their ATVs could no longer navigate the terrain, they pushed their way through briars so thick that thorns snagged even the smallest patches of their uncovered skin.

Ticks crawled on them, flies bit, and the sun just wouldn't relent. Still, the men climbed. About a half-mile in, they knew they were close. They could smell the pot.

They yanked out about 20 plants, most about 5 feet tall.

Pride, his arm bleeding and sweat dripping from the end of his nose, stomped the chicken wire that surrounded the plants. Meadows yanked out the wood stakes.

"Usually, we leave a business card," Pride said. "But I'm all out."

This is how they roll, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation's Marijuana Eradication Unit, a part of the attorney general's office.

Using $360,000 to $480,000 in earmarked federal funds each year to pay for the helicopter, overtime and related costs, four state drug agents and any local law-enforcement officers they can enlist spend nearly every weekday all summer scouring Ohio's countryside for marijuana plants.

Last year, they seized 40,148 plants, nearly 70 percent of that in the state's southeastern quadrant. The Drug Enforcement Administration says Ohio ranked 10th in the country for seizing outdoor marijuana plants.

The majority of the crop is planted hither and yon on remote hillsides in areas that only the most determined can reach. Sometimes, the patches are booby-trapped: Fish hooks hang from tree limbs, nails poke through boards hidden under the ground cover.

Few people are prosecuted for what authorities find, said Robert Beegle, the sheriff of Meigs County, which is by far Ohio's most pot-prolific county. He knows that cannabis blankets his Appalachian hills, and he is grateful for the state's help in removing it.

But there isn't enough time, money or manpower to charge those responsible.