Features

State officials report record pot seizures

By Jessica Brice The Associated Press
Wednesday October 30, 2002

 

SACRAMENTO — Growing marijuana in California isn’t what it used to be. 

Mexican drug cartels, attracted by the state’s rich soil and remote forests, grew nearly three-quarters of the pot seized in California this fall, state officials announced Tuesday. 

That marks a dangerous shift toward large and sophisticated growing operations, said Sonya Barna, commander of the Department of Justice’s Campaign Against Marijuana Eradication, known as CAMP. 

“It used to be an industry controlled by hippies with small gardens,” Barna said. “Now, it’s not uncommon to see cartels planting anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 plants in a garden.” 

This year, local, state and federal drug agents confiscated a record 354,000 of marijuana plants worth about $1.4 billion dollars, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Tuesday. 

State officials say higher prices — as much as $4,000 a pound — makes marijuana cultivation a fast-growing industry. 

Since the CAMP program started nearly 20 years ago, more than 3 million pot plants have been seized — nearly half of which were confiscated in just the last four years. 

About 74 percent of marijuana farms raided this year had apparent ties to Mexican drug cartels, which sometimes find it is easier to grow pot in the states.