Orange & Blue Magazine // Fall 2003 // Gainesville Green Page 2
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Waldo's Chief of Police, A.W. Smith, recalls many a drug bust. He had been involved with narcotics control in Alachua County from '71 to '80, and again from '87 to '92.

He was a major part of the Region II Task Force, a special-tasks unit specifically created in '71 to combat the insurgence of narcotics into Gainesville and surrounding areas.

The force was responsible for keeping a watchful eye on 19 counties here in Florida, ranging from Flagler County to the state line and from the east coast to the west.

This was the first time federal money was involved in helping to smoke out smoking up. With the funds, they were able to buy cars, radios, walkie-talkies, surveillance equipment and other necessities for sting operations.

Informants working for the DEA came in and showed the undercover agents of the Region II Task Force where they could find the drugs they were after.

"Mostly what we did was marijuana," recalls John Tileston, retired supervisor of the task force and now a private investigator.

Smith's jurisdiction also dealt primarily with pot.

"I seized a lot myself," he boasts.

Just exactly how much is a lot? He estimates there were about 22 to 25 tons confiscated in Alachua County from '70 to '80. That's 3.2 million quarter bags. If Gainesville Green cost the same as today's "kryp," then 25 tons could be worth as much as $320 million on the street.

Undercover Region II Task Force agents working to eradicate this mother lode of marijuana were taken directly out of recruit school without any real-life police training.

Tileston explains, "We wanted the people who didn't know what the heck they were doing."

Being so fresh helped the agents, who looked a lot like the pot-smokers anyway with their Burt Reynolds mustaches and big hair, fit in better with the people they were after.

"They worked undercover," Tileston says serious. "I mean really undercover."

They were told to make a minimum of three purchases from any particular dealer. If there was the possibility of scoring weight, the agents would hold off on their bust until a deal could be made.

When funding for the Region II Task force dried up, there was another special Narcotics and Organized Crime Unity (NOCU) formed in 1976.

It included the DEA, GPD, UPD, Alachua County Sheriff's and State Attorney's Office. They not only went after the drugs, but also the people behind the cultivation and distribution of them.

Finding the fruits of these people's labor was not always hard since Gainesville Green was an outdoor strain. It was grown in abandoned fields, on old farms and near swamps.

"Legend has it that at one time Gainesville Green was grown in the treetops," James says.

People would grow it anywhere and everywhere they could.

The cops started using airplanes to eradicate fields of marijuana around '75, says Smith. They would organize fly-bys with their aviation unit and spotters, people who were considered professionals at locating pot amongst fields of tall grass and forests.

"You [could] see it overhead if you had the eye for it," Tileston says. "It's a really different green."

In '77, around the Hawthorne area, Smith and other members of the force found a 5-acre area where marijuana was, according to Smith, "growin' like corn!" There wasn't a specific protocol to follow when they located a massive heap of heavenly hash, so they simply chopped it down and burned it (as in incinerated, not smoked).

Which is a damn shame because, as Smith puts it, "it was some pretty good stuff."

Talk about a field of dank dreams. Smith remembers stalks that reached some 18 feet and buds that were 3 to 4 inches in diameter. It took him and his team five days to chop down the stalks, pile them up and burn them to nothing. They decided to call in the media to witness the marijuana massacre in hopes of sending a message to the growers.

Another bust that Smith recalls deals with a group of Cuban men living in the Cedar Key area back in '77. They were operating a Cuban sandwich shop, but Smith's intuitions told him it was just a front.

One day, a U-Haul truck was parked in front of the suspects' apartment, which Smith thought was fairly suspicious. So, the next day he went for a "jog" and just happened to run by the U-Haul. He stopped by the truck to tie his shoe, which didn't need tying, and saw that the tailgate was covered with "shake," or crumbs, from the 5 1/2 tons of bailed marijuana that ended up being in the truck.

The shake-laden tailgate was enough proof to follow the U-Haul down County Road 231 until it was time to pull it over and arrest the occupants.

The method the Cuban men used for packing their product, called bailing, was a common way of packaging it for shipment to, and throughout, the United States.

Bails were typically just burlap sacks stuffed full of marijuana using a trash compactor. Not the gentlest way to treat the precious cargo, huh? Usually, however, Gainesville Green was handled more gingerly.

"You see the homegrown sensi got treated much better," Camil explains.

He recalls a period when some of the better stuff would come packed in mason jars, to preserve its freshness, smell, taste and potency.

"That was the two-hit pot," he says, referring to how fast a smoker could get sufficiently stoned.

It must've really been this good, too, because people were starting to travel to our little college town from all over the state— and then the nation— to make purchases.

And, there was always a lot to buy.

"I don't know who sold Gainesville Green, but I do know lots of people always had plenty," James says. "It was the most plentiful place for pot that I had ever been to." continued on next page>>