My very first drug bust

Yesterday, I was sitting in the cockpit of a helicopter, with headphones covering my ears as the pilot hit a bunch of switches thinking, "Wow, I get to do a lot of crazy stuff because of my job."

Case in point was yesterday's marijuana drug bust. Our county has a team of officers, who along with state agents, go out to destroy marijuana plantations. I met them at 6 a.m. at their office, and they brought me a long for one such bust.

Many of the grows, as they call them, are too secluded to access easily, so they clip the agents into a cord that hangs from a helicopter and fly them in two at a time. It's called short-hauling, and it looks both terrifying and really fun at the same time.


I didn't get to short-haul, of course, because you have to be trained and certified or whatever, but they did take me up in a helicopter to see the garden from above. I thought I would freak out once I got up in the air, but I felt strangely secure.


The rest of the time, I just watched them work. It's pretty amazing what they do.

Lesson learned: Don't step on the short line cable, it will cost you $5. Luckily, that's a lesson that it only took hearing for me to learn.