Authorities say ’09 a banner year for pot busts

It’s been a record-breaking year in terms of illegal marijuana garden eradication, law enforcement officials say.

To date, 200,451 marijuana plants have been pulled from Tuolumne County lands, said Sgt. Craig Davis, Tuolumne Narcotics Team commander.
   

The total street value is $4 million, Davis said.

On Thursday, TNT agents — along with officials from the state Department of Justice’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, federal Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service — eradicated 6,703 marijuana plants in three illegal growing operations, Davis said.

The sites were discovered through aerial observation, Davis said. Authorities were alerted to one of them by hunters, he said.

The gardens were found in the Moccasin area, the Basin Creek area near Tuolumne, and the Rattlesnake Creek area near the Sourgrass Recreation Area south of Dorrington.

All grows eradicated Thursday were determined to be operated by Mexican drug trafficking cartels, Davis said.

“This has been a record-breaking year by almost double,” Davis said of the amount of plants eradicated.

In 2008, there were just over 100,000 marijuana plants eradicated in Tuolumne County.

No suspects were located at any of the growing sites Thursday, Davis said.

Agents had to be dropped into the remote locations by helicopter, Davis said.

Agents had already eradicated a grow in the same Moccasin site earlier in 2009, he said.

“It’s the first time we’ve found them replanting an eradicated site,” Davis said. “It’s an indicator that marijuana cultivation is on the rise.”

Marijuana numbers are up across the state, Davis said.

The Region 5 CAMP team has already eradicated a million plants, a record for them, Davis said.

In 2006, CAMP seized 1,675,681 plants statewide, worth more than $6.7 billion, setting a new record at that time, according to the Attorney General’s office.