5 Acre Marijuana Farm Found and Destroyed in Redwood National Park

A vista in Redwood National ParkOn Wednesday a 5 acre marijuana farm located in Redwood National Park was raided by over 60 park rangers and other cooperating law enforcement officials. The farm was located less than six miles away from the world’s tallest tree. It is the first major marijuana growing operation to have been found in the well-known park.

The marijuana farm was located near an area known as Redwood Creek and contained an estimated 9,564 plants. They were immediately chopped down and removed by helicopter. A drug operation such as this one can be very hazardous to the environment as chemicals and fertilizers can significantly pollute park habitats. In a press release the National Park Service explained that “a graphic information system specialist went in with the raid teams for the first time in NPS history to perform an immediate evaluation of the impacts to natural resources during the raid. This documentation will be very beneficial for the restoration process.”

The plants growing on the illegal drug farm were estimated to be worth about $35 million dollars. The operation was first seen by an airplane flying above several weeks ago, and consequently the park’s staff was notified promptly. It is unclear for how long the farm had been operating.

Several Mexican citizens, 4 men and a woman, have been detained by law enforcement officials for questioning and are possibly connected to the operation. On the same day as the raid in the park, law enforcement officials also carried out several additional raids on growing operations nearby. Illegal drug operations are becoming increasingly more common in the U.S. inside and near national parks and forests. Raids are becoming a necessity.

An article published several days ago in USA Today quoted the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy as saying that 75%-80% of marijuana grown outdoors is on state or federal land. Mexican drug cartels are thought to be increasingly responsible for these illegal operations in national parks and on other protected lands. Smuggling drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border has become more challenging for them.

Other national parks where large marijuana farms have also recently been found and shut-down include North Cascades National Park in Washington and Sequoia National Park in California.

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Photo Credit: Michael Schweppe on Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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75 Comments

  1. AKA, you are a fool. Please take some time from your “responsible” life to be responsibly informed on the subject before you diarrhea from your mouth again.

  2. obvious troll is obvious

    2/5

  3. “Look at the real hard facts and how many people visit the ER each year due to marijuana” [citation needed]

    AKA, as BLT said, chill the fuck out and only concern yourself with your own health. I’ll do the same.

  4. Aka, you make me laugh. How can you even compare pot to alcohol? How can you compare it to a cigarette? Let’s look at a REAL FACT: No one has EVER died of a pot over dose in the history of it’s use. There has never been a reported over dose or death ever. If you over dose on pot the worse thing you do is eat to much and sleep. Alcohol kills people through substance abuse, and cigarettes are KNOWN to cause cancer. I’d like to know where you get your info at on pot. Link me a site with actual facts that say a person has been kills by smoking to much pot and I’ll stop tomorrow.

    There are not more people in substance abuse groups due to pot. Pot isn’t physically addictive. It’s not like alcohol. And every one knows groups like AAA is bs! 5% Success rate for graduation a year for thousands of people. Come on. It even goes so far to be partly religious organization as well.

    Personally I don’t think you know any thing. Please learn the facts or attempt to learn facts when you compare something like pot, something Canada put in the same category as Naproxsen. Give me a break.

    We wouldn’t have people growing on federal land if it were legal. Yep, take a toke, you’ll feel better, because you are right.. pot does have more side effects! Like helping nausiation, dulling pain, helping a person eat, helping them sleep… and so forth.

    Remember, not 1 documented death ever.

  5. AKA:

    ask your lawyer if he had a toke before the day began. More than likely, and from testimonials from most of my lawyer friends, is that a “toke is how they start the fucking day!!!!

    Get your head out of your ass!!!

    There’s a reason why you see this drug used in every sitcom on the devil tube theses days…

  6. AKA, can you source any of those ’side effects’? im curious on where you find your information. i’m pretty sure you’ve succumbed to the societal view of marijuana.

  7. AKA, if you lack the ability to do something as trivial as writing a concise and coherent paragraph, then your opinion means squat. Your comment makes it quite clear that you have never seen any “hard facts” regarding marijuana and all of your information is either propaganda that you were dumb enough to accept blindly or just some half-wit opinion you pulled out of your a$$. Get off the computer and go back to watching your family on the Maury show.

  8. Cancer is a Government conspiracy… and This is not solely my opinion but it is facts and my opinion is based on facts. If you cant really handle pressure or life then you should be smoking pot. ook at the real hard facts and how many people visit the ER each year due to marijuana and look at the hard numbers on how many people are in intervention and groups and rehab due to marijuana because there are none at all.. Marijuana ia a healer not a stealer. by doing drugs, get a grip on life and wake up to reality and start becoming responsible for your own life and problems.

  9. Hey AKA, sorry but if you lack the cognitive ability to do something as trivial as constructing a coherent paragraph free of 7-year old spelling attempts, then I’m really not interested in your opinion on pretty much anything. On top of that the statements you wrote make it quite clear that you don’t know anything about what you are talking about at all.

  10. hahaha,I bet AKA works for the big tobacco and alcohol administrations.More people in the ER and probation programs over marijuana than any other drug,wow that must be some crazy wonderful reality you live in pal.People die from alcohol on a daily basis,weather they are the one’s drunk or not,are you really that blind to reality,or just really that ignorant and scared?

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