Pubdate: Sat, 23 Aug 2008
Source: Willits News (CA)
Copyright: 2008 Willits News
Contact:  http://www.willitsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4085
Author: Linda Williams, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

2007 MARIJUANA HARVEST UP STATEWIDE

The amount of marijuana seized by law enforcement in 2007 was up in
Mendocino County with both the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting and
County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team reporting increased
numbers. With the outdoor harvest season coming up starting in
September, there is no word yet on whether the cooler spring and smoky
weather has cut this year's outdoor production.

The 2007 total seizures through COMMET (which includes the CAMP
numbers) was 320,809 plants, of those CAMP removed 220,436 plants.
This compares to the 2006 seizures of 232,231 plants through COMMET
including the CAMP share of 135,736 plants.

Overall CAMP conducted nearly the same number of raids but seized 2.9
million plants in 2007 compared to the 1.7 million plants seized in
2006. About 75 percent of the plants seized were on public lands.

Despite this increase, Mendocino County dropped to fourth place in the
CAMP seizure list with Lake County continuing to top the list with
483,000 plants and newcomer Humboldt County (previously in ninth
place) coming in second with 271,000 plants. Shasta County was in
third place at 270,700.

Mendocino National Forest was knocked out of first place in 2007 with
only 196,000 plants seized, down significantly from 2006 when 405,000
plants were found. According to Special Agent Ron Pugh of the US
Forest Service, this had more to do with a failure to count the plants
eradicated due to a key personnel transfer than it did with the number
of plants eradicated. Despite the reported numbers, Pugh believes the
actual number of illegal plants growing in Mendocino National Forest
was up over previous years.

Of the nearly 2.2 million plants eradicated in national forests across
the country 1.96 million were in California.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin