Illegal marijuana possession has focused law enforcement efforts this week on area border crossings and in the Southtowns, where a woman in her 60s was arrested for allegedly growing her own crop.

Barbara Ober, 63, of Sturgeon Point Road, Derby, is facing charges after police allegedly found marijuana plants growing on her front porch. She said she uses the drug to treat herself for glaucoma and arthritis, Evans police said.

Medicinal use of marijuana remains illegal in New York State, however, and Evans police, assisted by the Erie County sheriff’s helicopter, seized as many as seven plants from her property and charged Ober with unlawful growing of cannabis as well as criminal possession of marijuana, both misdemeanors.

Evans police Capt. Charles Danzi said police received a tip that Ober was growing cannabis and summoned help from the sheriff’s Air One helicopter, whose pilot spotted the illegal plants in plain view on Ober’s front porch Aug. 27. Ober was arrested and faces an appearance in Evans Town Court.

Ober, reached at home late Wednesday, declined to comment.

Meanwhile, in a trio of marijuana roundups at area border crossings dating back to Aug. 27, nearly 675 pounds of the drug were seized on both sides of the border, including 168 pounds that U. S. Customs and Border Protection officers found Wednesday in a shipment of paint additive on a commercial truck. Jasdev Dhillon, 38, of Brampton, Ont., was on his way to Newark, N. J., with the load when he was arrested at the Peace Bridge.

The bust there followed Monday’s arrest of Gurmit Singh, 40, a Canadian truck driver who allegedly attempted to smuggle 353 pounds of marijuana in a shipment of firestarter wood.

Singh’s arrest came just after Canadian border authorities seized more than 151 pounds of marijuana with an estimated street value of $1.3 million at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge on Aug. 27. About $23,000 in U. S. currency also was seized and a 55-year-old truck driver from Brampton, Ont., was arrested.