5 Acre Marijuana Farm Found and Destroyed in Redwood National Park
On 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.
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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
@AKA
SHUT THE HELL UP!!You have absolutely no idea what the hell you are talking about. Alcohol,for one, is the cause for like 40% of deaths in the world, and screws your body up like 80% more than ganja ever will. cigarettes will screw you up even more! They add like ammonia, cyanide, and all these chemicals just so you get addicted to them. Does weed have any foreign substances in it? Unless it’s laced, no.So asshole before going on a rant get your facts straight and have a bowl.you need one.
Stupid cops, I bet half the “confiscated” pot ended up in the cops own personal stash! How pathetic. A Little pot never hurt anyone!
Jiff
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
AKA,
uhh… what facts exactly are you talking about? Maybe you should list some sources. The prescription drug pushers are causing more harm than the marijuana growers.
sheesh!
Hey AKA-
Putting anything into your body is dangerous. You may choke.
ER visits exist because of misinformation- you should NEVER need to visit a hospital because of marijuana. At worst, you’ll be dizzy and tired, symptoms with an obvious origin, symptoms no hospital should be asked to treat.
Marijuana is not physically addictive. I smoked it daily for months before I spent a year traveling in China, during which I smoked no marijuana. I experienced no withdrawal symptoms.
Look at the subjective truths, not the “real hard facts”, and you’ll find that banning a substance, thereby creating a source of income for anti-societal outlaws and criminalizing members of society who are either self-medicating or adventurous or creative, can only be the result of political interests, not logic.
AKA, smoke a doobie, relax, maybe you are the one who needs to chill or your gonna have a heart attack, get a grip on your life mate..
be responsible…
AKA your facts please? I am unable to find a physician that can corroborate your story…even…
AKA, i am a frequent pot smoker, and personally I don’t appreciate your ignorant bash on weed one bit. First off, if you look up LEGIT facts you’ll see that weed is no where near as bad for you as alcohol and cigarettes are, and secondly the reason so many people are in rehab for marijuana, is not because they need rehab, but instead because they were caught smoking weed and the court forced them to take rehab classes. So next time you want to bash something that is no where near as bad as your trying to make it, look more into it so you don’t sound like an idiot.
AKA
u suck at life
the only reason its illegal is because of false propaganda designed to keep alchohol and paper companies on top. u wont understant anything i type causeits far too complex for you but why dont you just look it up. ill make a short list.
-can stop global warming cause it takes in more co2 than most plants
-it can stop deforestation because it takes one acre of hemp to make as much paper as 4 acres of trees and only takes a season to grow vs. 20 yrs
-safer that alcohol
-cant kill you
-could be taxed for revenue
-we could save 15billion if we stopped trying to fight it
-it will never go away
-it will Never go away
-IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY
-and if used with an herbal vaporiser has no side effects and is healthier than any thing else you could smoke
oh and it fights cancer altzyemers anorexia sleep disorders gulecoma and lowers blood pressure.
this probably wont prove anything to u cause ur a close minded old fart that sticks to what he was taught in school. open your eyes see the truth and dont belive everything mommy and daddy told you. P.S. the tooth fairy isnt real either.
feel free to respond to this but youll only be talking to yourself cause i probly wont come back to have this petty fight with you.
have an nice day =)
AKA, you seriously must be the most ignorant person i’ve ever heard of.
Holy hell,
A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I were camping up by Big Bend lodge on the eel river, and as we walked upstream we stumbled across several marijuana plants on the shore. We thought it was a crazy thing to find at the time, but it all makes sense.
We were less then 2 miles from The World’s Largest Tree, and with the up stream walking…We managed to stumble across offspring from this huge operation all coincidentally! And then it gets busted weeks later. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?
I am stunned by this coincidence, and that it all happened like it did.
-Kid Hiker.