Wild marijuana plants are found growing in an area in the southwest side of South Bend on Friday. (SBT Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN)
SOUTH BEND — In some places amid the seemingly endless rows of corn that dominate the farmland on the southwestern outskirts of South Bend, you can spot another plant that likes this fertile soil.
Since the early 1940s, thickets of wild marijuana have sprung up each year throughout northwestern Indiana, a remnant of World War II-era industrial hemp fields that were sown to support the war effort by furnishing raw material for parachute cords.
Police and local officials have taken measures over the years to get rid of the so-called “ditch weed” when it makes its annual appearance, but in many areas the plants are as rampant as ever, sometimes growing eight to 10 feet tall.
“It’s amazing how much marijuana is growing down there,” said Capt. Phil Trent, a South Bend police spokesman. “It looks like you’re in Colombia when you’re down there.”
In fact, even as some would-be harvesters continue to find their way to the patches of wild cannabis, authorities have largely backed away from seeking and destroying ditch weed — partly because of funding cuts and a focus on more sinister drugs, but also because getting rid of the plants is seen as an impossible task.
"You can eradicate ditch weed as well as you can eradicate dandelion," said Capt. David Bursten, an Indiana State Police spokesman.
Copyright © 2024, South Bend Tribune