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, would you mind linking to some of these studies on the side effects of marijuana?
To AKA:
I’d first like to point out that it’s extremely difficult to take your argument seriously when all I can focus on is your abysmal grip on the English language. Why should I respect your opinion if you can’t even muster the skills to properly express it? Your arguments are undeveloped and sloppy, and you’ve failed to include any hard evidence to back your beliefs.
“If anyone has any sense then they would realize that any form of administiring marijuana into the body is dangerous.”
Yeah, sure, they just keep all the yearly pot-brownie fatalities on the down-low. Spread the good word, Sobriety Soldier! (sarcasm)
“There are more side effects from marijuana than alcohol and and cigarettes combined. This is not soley my opinion but it is facts and my opinion is based on facts.”
How do you figure? Show me where you’re stumbling upon these “facts” and maybe I’ll start to take you seriously. Are marijuana-induced side effects responsible for more deaths than alcohol and cigarettes, too? I doubt that. I doubt that very much.
Alcohol is responsible for more fatal traffic incidents than marijuana. It’s safer to drive high on marijuana than drunk. I drive high all the time, but I would NEVER drive drunk.
LIVER FAILURE.
Cancer due to cigarette usage is far more likely than from pot.
What about nicotine addiction?
McDonald’s drive-through has more negative side effects on the human body (and society as a whole than marijuana). Perhaps the legality of fast food should be brought to question. How about peanut butter? Think of all the allergic reactions we could put an end to if peanuts and related products were outlawed?
Or automobiles! We could just make those illegal. They’re responsible for a lot of deaths. Do you consider the risks before joy riding?
The damage caused by alcohol abuse greatly outweighs that caused by marijuana. It is my opinion that most of the negative effects of marijuana on our society could be eliminated with its legalization, though I doubt that will happen any time soon.
“No problem would be solved by leagalizing it, all it would do is make you pot heads less suseptible for being arrested and be able to obtain it cheaper and easier than it already is.”
I disagree. I believe a great many issues could be solved. The government could stop wasting tax dollars on a war against weed that isn’t worth fighting. New avenues in medical research and development could be opened. Growth and sale could be regulated, making distribution and consumption safer for the public. A tax could be applied, benefiting our government. Farmers would gain a new and profitable cash crop in hemp. Ethanol derived from hemp could help with the growing energy crisis. New jobs could be created in the manufacturing and distribution of hemp and related products. Overall, our economy could see considerable gains.
“Dont give me the its all natural crap either casue if you do then go smoke some weeds or dirt or leaves for chirsts sake ok so natural doesnt mean it should be legalized either so just shut up.”
What is this? You make so many illogical jumps in this sentence I don’t know where to start trying to break it down.
“so natural doesnt mean it should be legalized either”
Where do you draw this conclusion from? Nothing from the first half of your sentence supports that. You’re just saying things without any basis.
But for the record, I’d totally smoke dirt and leaves if they had any sort of mind altering affect. Just like I’d eat rocks if my body could extract any nutritional gains from them.
“If you cant really handel pressure or life then you shouldnt be living or go play a video game, get a job, take a walk, exercise, dont take the cheap hazardous way out by doing drugs, get a grip on life and wake up to reality and start becoming responsible for your own life and problems.”
I am a well-rounded, intelligent, and fully functional member of society. Life has its ups and downs, which I handle accordingly. I do not rely on smoking to alleviate stress. I play video games, work a job, and attend college. I jog (on average) around 8 miles a day. I also smoke recreationally. It’s a fun way to connect with friends while exploring myself and my world. In my opinion—based on what experience and research have lead me to believe as fact—the positive gains of marijuana usage outweigh the negative. I whole-heartedly believe that smoking has made me a better person, but I do not force my lifestyle upon anyone. In return, I believe that I should have the right to choose my own lifestyle. However, our government’s restrictions on marijuana directly hamper my ability to do so.
I’ll be the first to say that smoking is not for everyone. Like alcohol and cigarette consumption, I believe smoking marijuana requires a great deal of responsibility. I recognize the risks of pot. However, I believe that I should have the right to endure those risks.
I do not support other drugs like heroin, meth, crack, etc. I believe these drugs do a great deal of damage to those that use them, and to our society as a whole.
AKA: You forget that the reason more people are in rehab for marijuana (I’m making the assumption here that your statement is true- true or not) is that the government has sent them to rehab in the first place (for breaking the law). It has nothing to do with wanting to get off the substance-or not being able to “just quit”. Unlike cigarettes you don’t have to get “off it” since it isn’t addictive in the way cigarettes are. At least not the way the majority smokes it-infrequently. I believe you are right if you were to say it has 10 times the nicotine of cigarettes though. Interpreting the reality is different than reading biased statistics handed to you by government or educators. By the way-no I don’t smoke the weed even on occasion anymore. I have smoked it though- I know people who smoke it regularly- and I know people who smoked it regularly and just stopped. It does cost money and in my opinion isn’t that great. That is why I stopped. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. One day I just didn’t smoke it anymore. Yea- so it isn’t addictive.
This is hilarious: an article on how idiot illegal immigrant pot-growers have been ruining our protected national forests and the first commenter can only think to demand legalization between tokes. lol.
It’s unfortunate that we have people as irresponsible as this, but do you truly think that this would not happen with the legalization of a will-depriving drug? The fact is these criminals simply wouldn’t get caught, since the creation of a legal market would only make the black market more competitive, and nothing’s cheaper than illegally immigrating and using the peoples’ free land.
AKA, you are and idiot.
You have obviously never smoked marijuana before. People, in the ER for smoking weed? Seriously, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I would also assume the large majority of people in rehab for marijuana are there against their will (perhaps a court sentence ie. slap on the wrist for getting caught). Personally, I smoked weed every day for about half a year, and then at the push of a button I stopped instantaneously. I will attribute that to my super human ability to withstand any form of addiction, since as you probably already know, marijuana is extremely addictive.
Stop getting your facts on something you no
absolutely nothing about from your grandma and bad 1930’s movies.
aka, man that is a lot of hate, im sorry that the simple deed of taking a plant that probaly was here before humans, drying it and then smoking it, awakes so much anger in you. so here it goes, i will now as a pothead, write a responce to you post, ill hope you will read it, and i promise it will be as hate free as i can make it.
oi do consider myself having a little sense, and i know that weed is bad, as i know junk food, alcohol and cigarettes is, but the way i see it, thoose and a few more related but non “bad” things is the very things that give life a little twist and fun.
and i do very well see all of your points, but really dont you think there are other stuff you should focus on, than a plant that makes people hungry and happy. i do not think that weed is going to be the root to the fall of humanity.
on the health related issues i am a bit confused, canser is a product of the tobacco mixed in or the general smoke i think, and i would say cigarttes is the real devil here, and its a medical product? sure it sedates your braincells and makes you all “whats going on???” but after a half year of non toking, your back to normal. oh yeah you talk about the real hard facts of people going to the ER due to weed, can you please post them and your other sources, not that i dont belive you but i am interested in finding out the numbers:)
you also seem quite angry with the excuse that it is natural, well it is, maybe not as much anymore as it have been manipulated to make it more potent, but it is still a plant that grew in the side of the roads back in the days. and while i agree that it is not an excuse to smoke it just because it is natural, it is something to think about, when did we humans think that we could decide be rules what should grow in the ground, honestly where have the general belief in humanity gone, there are so many freakin rules these days, you can in my country honestly get a ticket, if you as a construction worker havent got a chapstick on you. sry for the hate but i just feel like all of these rules and the constantly making of new ones, makes us human more likely to follow the road that everybody else has and will.
okay and rehab from weed, im 19, i started smoking when i was 16, started smoking everyday when i was 18 and did dad for around 9 months, and i will say i felt quite addicted, one day i decided to take a break during my exams, and sure the first couple of days where if nothing else iritating, couldnt sleep, thought a lot about smoking and was a bit hatefull against everyone, but after 3 days i felt fine, and it actually wasn’t that hard, just takes an inch of actual willpower to stop. and then after i had passed my exams i started smoking again not because i had to, but because i like it. people in weed rehab, i would say it is a bit much.
all in all, what people do in their homes, in their freetime is their buissnes, and unless it harms other people, i cant see why anyone should care. especially when the subject is a plant, and not terror, war, polution or the many other FAR more stupid thing we as humanity have going on.
to end of i have choosen to quote a wise little man: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” so dont be scared of marijuana it normaly leads to you beeing happy and hungry, wich isn’t that bad, seeing that some people could use that:)
irk, in europe our take on cannabis isn’t that good, we got like one country (netherlands) where its legal, and they have just banned tobacco, and shrooms (though i understand the shrooms!) so look where that is going… rest of the EU countries its banned, some places legal for medical treatment, but it is a very short list of diseases it aplies to.
@AKA
“If you cant really handel pressure or life then you shouldnt be living”
So you suggest people commit suicide rather than smoke marijuana and then (at some point) go to rehab? Wow.
If it came to a vote would you vote for prohibition of alcohol? What about all the liver and brain damage that’s been done (not to mention drunken beatings and car accidents) through alcohol consumption?
I can see that you really don’t have the facts on the legalization movement.
WTF OVER??? —AKA said on September 14th, 2008 at 7:48 pm —
I need to have u back some of that up with some sort of footnote so we can make sure youre giving us the “FACTS”…cuz i dont think you have any.
Tell me about the Cancers, uh, please… there isnt any..read ur books and dont skim thru them. There is NOT 1 CASE OF CANCER EVER ASSOCIATED with consumption of weed. Though smoking can cause a Pre-cancerous looking leisons in the wind-pipe that never goes on to become cancerous, so thats the only dangerous aspect of the herb which is mostly caused from the burning of vegetive matter or papers in a joint. This easily remedied or reversed by cutting back on consumption rate.
You seem to be the one lacking the sense of reality, what freaking planet are u on? What you wrote has no credible or substantial backing, youre just the pissed off typical non-user who has no clue and is speaking out their ass. Maybe you should try it and see what happens, or wait, no dont, youre already skewed enough to not know the facts and yet you want to preach them. Maybe its YOU who doesnt have a life or a library pass or the right of mind to read a book on weed or medicinal herb before you comment. Your words are complete MOOT. Read a book by Jack Herer, author of the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, if you can read that and come back with something from one of the Books YOU HAVE READ, please note something worthy and make all of us who have a better education and sense of reality sit here and ponder such great wisdom, because it yet has not hit the mainstream news and we need to be enlightend.
There are breakthroughs in research each month on the many medicinal values locked within this plant and you, like most of us, if not all, could benefit from. Your body produces its own form of cannibinoids, look that up, maybe you would want to explain how you & I have such receptors sites in our bodys that are specifically designed to benefit from this plant like non other on the planet.
Get out, go to a Hempfest, talk to real people and get real information before you say such things full of Crap..get your facts before you state “facts”, and Jacks book, is full of great facts and history. Enjoy and peace and love to you, we still love you as a human even tho youre as stupid as a rock, AKA-poster.
Swpnclr
AKA you do not know what you’re talking about. Tobacco kills 480,000 Americans yearly. Alcohol kills 80,000. Hell, even caffeine kills more people than heroin and cocaine combined.
The funny thing is that marijuana has not killed a single person. It’s impossible to overdose on it (you would’ve to ingest about 110/120 pounds to overdose).
There hare more and more research on cannabis, and they have found out that there are health benefits. It can work as an antibiotic, it relieves pain (headaches/migraine, menstrual pain, nausea etc.), it can help people with leukemia, cancer or HIV/AIDS.
The problem is that there are so many people in the western world today who have swallowed all that anti-drug-propaganda. Just look up Harry J. Anslinger and see what he did. Read the story behind it and you’ll soon see it’s a war based on racism and lies.
Yeah, it’s sad.
and please don’t come here with “facts” you got off the FDA website…that is like listening to McCain talk about his POW history