Deputies confiscate 3,200 pounds of marijuana during grow raids in northern Santa Cruz County

[alp227]

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Sheriff's deputies seized more than a thousand marijuana plants from four sites in the county this week as part of their ongoing enforcement efforts.

According to Sgt. Peter Hansen, deputies were looking to determine whether the medical marijuana grows were in compliance with state laws. Of the 10 spots they searched, plants were seized from four.

"We found three cultivations that were so egregiously out of compliance that we seized all of the plants," Hansen said.

At a fourth, some plants were seized to bring the spot into compliance with medical marijuana laws. Hansen would not say specifically where the grows were other than they were all in the vicinity of the Santa Cruz Mountains in the northern part of the county.

Read more: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_21211450

[msongs]

1. great news for mexican cartels, keeps the price of drugs up up up nt

[Webster Green]

2. As if the weight means anything.

Noting the weight of a bunch of wet, unprocessed, vegetative-stage plants is pretty absurd.

The earliest outdoor plants are just now starting to stack into buds.

[Maynar]

3. I heard they weigh

root balls, dirt and all, to pad the weight.

The pejorative "dirtballs" comes to mind.

[sofa king]

4. Well, there's always crack and meth around, right?

I wonder if that will occur to these deputies over the course of this long, hot, and now sure to be very busy summer.

[BlueToTheBone]

9. Don't forget bath salts!

I mean, really. Meth is the scourge of the country and they are still going after cannabis?

[Reasonable_Argument]

16. Meh, that would require real work

And the assets forfeiture wouldn't be as high. Remember, it's just a business and these monsters are looking to turn a profit.

[DCKit]

5. You look like heroes when playing the away games, no so much at home. nt

[12ZTR]

6. Will it soon be legal?

If local, state, federal govts. continue to falter, the green weed may be legalized to raise revenue.
Govt. has to find a source of revenue.

[GliderGuider]

10. I like that idea. "Necessity is the mother of practicality."

And the mother of long-overdue sanity.

[rks306]

7. Failed war

War on drugs has been the longest American war ever. $25 billion a year. Stop the insanity. Legalize it and tax it.

[sarcasmo]

8. The weed prohibition needs to end.

[ET Awful]

11. Why do I get the feeling that "3,200 pounds" includes not just "usable" marijuana, but the entire

plant with leaves, stalk, potting soil, etc.?

I just have an odd suspicion that it does.

[Webster Green]

12. There would be very little, (if any) usable marijuana in what they took.

This is the time when the buds are just beginning to form on some plants that tend to flower early. Most outdoor plants are still totally vegetative (unless they had the amount of daylight manipulated somehow), and won't even begin to stack for a couple more weeks. All the stuff they took would have been trimmed off during processing, and (in most cases) thrown away.

The bad guys sure enough got rid of the crop, but the weight of what they confiscated is totally irrelevant.

[Don C. Nuttin]

13. as they used to say ...

Cops have the best dope.

[tabasco]

14. I feel so much safer

now that some people can't mellow out.

Thanks government.

[KamaAina]

15. Wow! I ought to move over the hill!

Santa Cruz County seems to have a lot more money for stuff like this than nearby places like San Jose, which just laid off a bunch of cops.

[olddad56]

17. 3200 lbs of marijuana plants is not like 3200 lbs of marijuana.

The roots. trunk, limbs, stems, and leaves, all still green and freshly pulled out of the ground might have weighed 3200 pounds. but how much did the all of the buds weigh? Typical cop scheme. I would imagine they estimated the value to be at least several million dollars.