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.
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.”[social_buttons]
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
haha, I’m also glad to see that everyone else is calling AKA on his bullshit post.
I’d like to hear where your facts came from because they are total BS. Pot is much safer than any legal drug out there right now.
Deaths caused by marijuana a year = 0
Deaths caused by aspirin = 500
Any kid can buy aspirin. Learn your facts. Then try to post something intelligent.
Hmmmm. Impact on the environment?
Sounds like to me the only thing that impacted the forest park was the fact that 10k plants were forcefully removed. Common, really? A plant destroying a forest? That’s the greenest picture I think I’ve ever seen, there’s no dying trees there.
Not to mention Marijuana is a seasonal plant, meaning when it dies, the nutrients go RIGHT BACK INTO THE SOIL.
2 obvious lessons here:
1) Illegal aliens are a much bigger menace than the open-borders lobby wants us to believe, and we need to get serious stopping unsustainable immigration, which is no longer just a theoretical threat to the redwoods.
2) Marijuana is not entirely “harmless” but its prohibition is stupid.
I for one don’t want to waste my tax dollars funding a drug war that does not exist.
What a waste.