More than $1 billion worth of marijuana has been uprooted from federal lands during a two-month operation targeting illegal pot farms, federal authorities announced Tuesday.
Operation Mountain Sweep has resulted in the destruction of 578,000 marijuana plants, Benjamin B. Wagner, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, said in a press release.
The operation, involving agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as local agencies, targeted growing sites on public lands in seven Western states - Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
Wagner said 14 individuals in California have been indicted on charges resulting from Operation Mountain Sweep. Authorities have shut down 96 pot farms on public lands in California since the operation began July 1, the federal authorities said. Among those pot farms were sites in national forests and parks, including Death Valley National Park.
Besides producing an illegal crop, the pot farms can do long-term damage to public lands by destroying trees and vegetation, introducing chemicals and pesticides, diverting water sources, and generating large amounts of trash.
“Those who cultivate marijuana on public lands pose a safety threat to the public and an environmental threat to the land. Many of the grow sites are controlled by drug trafficking organizations, which arm their cultivators with dangerous firearms. The poisons they spread kill wildlife and native plants and pollute watersheds," Wagner said in the press release.
The operation will continue through the end of August, authorities said.
Where is the adult comment section?
Say you can pay taxes on your own little nickle bag of stash that is all your own, you won't be able to buy it even if it was legalized. 1. You don't have a job to pay for it. 2. Nobody reputable will hire you. You will fail the hiring drug test. And you will fail random drug testing. What did you do with your time this past year? I been smokin man.
And just downwind from where federal authorities were burning the illegal pot plants that had been seized, stores had a run on Doritos and Twinkies!
I'm already missing a lawnmower, over $100 of gasoline, and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They had have their funeral services all laid for themselves. And grower and the pusher? I'm not to worried about them either when thier customers start come up "missing".
So, the assumptions you are making by your statements are: 1. Everyone who smokes cannabis is unemployed. 2. Everyone who smokes cannabis is unworthy of being hired for the sole reason that they smoke cannabis. Everyone who smokes cannabis is incompetent and incapable of producing quality work. Everyone who smokes cannabis has been doing nothing but smoking cannabis for the past year.
There would be no drug testing for cannabis if it were legalized and taxed, as per your original supposition.
Out of curiosity, how far up into one's intestines does one have to stick their head to have the same views as you?
People are tired of being victimized by drug users. They'll wind up one of two ways. Jailed or Dead.
What drugs do You use?
Beer? Tobacco?
How about the poisonous drug that kills more people than Heroin & Coke put together: Aspirin!
Aspirin also causes birth defects ... deformed fingers used to be common among the children of women with arthritis.
You only use drugs that have corporate sponsors .... tough.
so sad, such a waste of good pot and the resources it took to destroy it.
Legalize this miracle weed already, stop wasting money we don't have fighting human nature and real nature...
I think we got a shizophrenic in here, with 30 different screen names and personalities. All the comments are the same.
No, people actually want weed to be legal. You're apparently the only one that doesn't.
No, Jeffy, you just have a large burr impacted up your rectum.
WHAT A WASTE.. Legalize it....
agreed!
This is the 21st F'n century. Most citizens that are healthy people, do not want no part of your drugs and no part of you YOU. You are are going to go....down only!
Yeah right wing healthy people use Oxy, Tobacco, alcohol, ad nauseum.
Doesn't Ohio have the 3.2 oz in a civil infraction?
"Right Wing Insanity"
well said.....
most citizens are healthy? been to a wal-mart lately?
In 1975, Ohio made possession and cultivation of less than 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of cannabis and a gift of 20 grams (0.7 ounces) or less of cannabis a minor misdemeanor (same class as minor traffic violations) punishable by a $150 fine, a 6 month to 5 year drivers license suspension and a suspension of any professional licenses.[54] According to the Ohio Revised Code
coulda paid for a couple of michele's vacations
America doesn't have good weed anyway.
What a shame and complete let down for our American "Injustice" system. Marijuana could possibly save our economy if it was legalized, regulated, and taxed. And they always say that marijuana causes damage to other species of life from the chemicals and pesticides being used. Well then why dont they educate people about growing organically? Which is the way that most pot farmers have been growing for years, because a veteran pot farmer knows that marijuana that is grown with chemical fertilizers will not smoke as good as organically grown pot. Sooner or later I hope that we can get some people elected in office that will stand up against the marijuana prohibition, and free this natural plant that God has blessed us with. Marijuana possibly holds the key to a cancer cure and our government is doing everything they can to suppress it. What a shame, free the weed. If you take the criminal aspect out of the situation then you wouldnt have to worry about drug cartels making billions of dollars every year off of it. Think about it: do you ever see drug cartels smuggling alcohol into the U.S.
idiots, trying to play weed off like its hurting the environment. why not focus this effort into getting rid of synthetic marijuana before there is another zombie apocalypse.
Do you have anything constructive to contribute? We heard you the first dozen times.