California CAMP eradicated 466,054 cannabis plants in the 2003 season
Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting removed 466,054 illegally cultivated plants in 182 raids across 32 counties during the 2003 growing season, with 35 arrests and 50 weapons seized; his office valued the crop at more than $1.9 billion.
🇺🇸 California (32 counties) · California, United States
On 29 October 2003 Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced in San Jose that California’s Campaign
Against Marijuana Planting had eradicated 466,054 cannabis plants during the 2003 season, about
100,000 more than the previous record.[1][2]The Department of Justice valued the removed crop at
more than $1.9 billion.[1]
Season totals
Lockyer said CAMP ran 182 raids in 32 counties from late July through early October, averaging
nearly 2,500 plants per raid.[1]Officers made 35 arrests and seized 50 weapons.[1]About 75
percent of gardens were on public land, a 20 percent increase over the prior year, and plantation-
sized grows linked to Mexican drug organizations accounted for 84 percent of plants removed.[1][2]
Violence and traps
The attorney general’s office said the 2003 season saw armed garden tenders fire on officers in
Southern California and that four suspects were killed in Northern California after aiming at
law enforcement.[1]Agents also reported booby-traps including camouflaged barbed wire, bear traps
and hidden razor blades; no officers suffered serious injuries.[1]CAMP Commander Val Jimenez said
cooperation among state, federal and local agencies made the 21st season successful.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The announcement totals one eradication season, not a single garden; individual raid sizes vary from hundreds to a reported record garden of 70,000 plants.
Street value is the Department of Justice estimate, not a measured sale price.
Lockyer said four garden tenders were shot dead in Northern California after aiming at officers and that Southern California sheriffs were fired on; the opened release does not name the dead or the agencies involved in those shootings.
California's Unified Cannabis Enforcement Task Force seized or destroyed 55,308 pounds of illicit cannabis and eradicated 108,226 plants between July and September 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom's office said. The quarter's operations across nine counties led to 14 arrests, nine firearms and $29,215 in cash, and brought the state's nine-month total to more than $230 million in cannabis.
Arrested 14Plants destroyed 108,226Cannabis 25.0873 t
Humboldt County sheriff's deputies eradicated about 3,102 cannabis plants and destroyed about 36 pounds of processed cannabis at two unlicensed grows near Alderpoint and Garberville on 5 and 6 October 2026. No arrests were made and the cases were sent to the District Attorney for review.
On 25 September 2026 New Mexico's Regulation and Licensing Department Enforcement Bureau and the Organized Crime Commission raided 102 Howell Road in Estancia, Torrance County, seizing and destroying about 6,300 mature cannabis plants in 21 greenhouses weighing an estimated 21,000 pounds. The case remains open for prosecution.
On 16 September 2026 U.S. Forest Service officers, Glenn County’s Major Crimes Task Force and a Forest Service helicopter team eradicated about 700 cannabis plants from an illegal grow in remote Mendocino National Forest. No arrests were reported.
