Record Year Reported In Marijuana Fight

[BluntKilla]

The state attorney general's office said its campaign against marijuana camps is having a record year, with more than 1.2 million plants eradicated in California so far.

Teams of local, state and federal law enforcement officers have raided illegal marijuana gardens, destroying plants with an estimate street value of $4.9 billion.

In Santa Cruz County, the sheriff's office's marijuana enforcement team has destroyed dozens of outdoor marijuana gardens this summer and has uprooted more plants than ever this year.

The team is just 100 plants short of 43,000, which officials said is three times as many pot plants as they uprooted last year.

Sheriff's officials said there are a number of reasons behind the record pot seizures this year, including an aggressive surveillance program and even larger pot-growing areas.

"Those gardens continue to grow each year, and so, they terrace and they do their operation. If they don't get caught that year, they actually add to their garden, making it bigger," Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office spokesman Steve Carney said.

Farms are being discovered on public lands, such as state park property, where growers scar the environment with pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

This weekend, a crew from Fresno-based High Sierra Volunteer Trail Group will begin a cleanup operation at Castle Rock State Park.

The group has rehabilitated gardens in Big Basin Redwoods State Park and will likely need three days to repair the damage at Castle Rock.

The attorney general's office ranked Shasta, Lake and Mendocino counties as the largest areas where pot has been eradicated. Santa Cruz County ranked 19th and Monterey County 23rd.

Newshawk: BluntKilla - 420 Magazine
Source: KSBW 8 Santa Cruz
Pubdate: September 8, 2006
Copyright: Copyright 2006 by TheKSBWChannel.com
Contact: mtynews@ibsys.com <mtynews@ibsys.com>
Website: TheKSBWChannel.com - News